


The Althing Infernal

by Aleph (Immatrael), EarthScorpion



Series: Ascensions and Transgressions [4]
Category: Exalted
Genre: F/F, Role-Playing Game, Roleplay Logs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-21 11:21:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 34,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13739814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Immatrael/pseuds/Aleph, https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarthScorpion/pseuds/EarthScorpion
Summary: A year has passed since Keris was introduced to Hell and all its glories, and Calibration has come again. Now she must boast of her triumphs in the Infernal Althing - and hope she can live up to her title.





	1. Chapter 1

It is the 15th of Falling Fire, and the wind blows through Keris’ hair as they circle in towards the remote island near to the place they vacationed earlier in the year. There is a hidden inlet in the isle which if followed dries up and leaves them on silver sand. Sasi said when they arrived that this is a place in the world scarred by the death of an Unquestionable, aeons ago.

Keris can hardly believe it. It’s a beautiful little island with a low rocky peak surrounded by mangrove forests and a coral reef.

They both fuss over the agatae for a while, adjusting the loads and checking on the various bits of cargo; reluctant to start out on the next leg of their journey. Here in Creation, they’re safe. Once they start out into Cecelyne, they won’t be.

((Rolling Principles: Sasi, 4-dot: 1 sux.  
Possessiveness, 3-dot: Fail.))

Eventually, though, there comes a point when they can no longer put it off. Keris steps forward first.

“I, uh...” she says quietly, “I still have a lot of the loot from the Mercy. The snake took some, bastard thing, but it was carrying a couple of king’s ransoms in gems and gold and silver.” She chews a hair tendril and has to force the next words out with a wince. “If you... wanted to ask the Endless Desert to ease our passage and conceal our way, it might help if you had something to sacrifice to her?”

((Hee. I do like rolling against Keris’s Possessiveness to make her give up her treasures. : D))

Sasi smiles at Keris widely, and there’s no sign of any nervousness there. “You forget,” she says, “I am a priestess of the Desert - and I am a desert creature.” She closes her eyes for the moment, and Keris feels the prickle of Sasi’s invisible mind-hands over her before they move on. As Keris watches, Sasi raises a hand and shoots a bolt of colourless light at a brightly coloured bird of paradise in a nearby tree. The bird falls out of the tree, stunned and gets caught by invisible hands.

“Blood should suffice,” Sasi says. A single feather falls from the bird, and she passes it to Keris. It’s a beautiful blue-green. “Blood is water and blood is life, and the desert takes both.”

Brightening considerably at the reassurance that she won’t have to part with her beautiful shiny things, Keris twirls the feather between her fingers for a moment and then threads it into her hair. “Okay then,” she chirps. “Let’s go.”

It is a matter of half an hour’s work for Sasi to turn a tree into a workable kayak, and then a little more time to test and load it. Keris hasn’t ever seen a tree spontaneously spray out woodchips before, but the way Sasi’s powers take the place of tools is very handy. Keris smiles to herself. Of course, Keris likes her shiny pretty tools. Things would be boring if she didn’t have those pretty brushes she bought herself to use with Sasi’s inks.

Sasi passes an oar to Keris, and takes one herself. “We both have to paddle,” she says, taking one end. “We’re going against the current here - where the water is darker and faster than it should be. This island spills cold dark water into the warm ocean around us.”

Keris takes the oar with a vaguely amused look as she steps into the back of the kayak behind Sasi. She unbinds her braid with a toss of her head, letting the many tendrils fall down into the water behind them, and the boat immediately lurches forward at a faster pace than two oars could strictly account for.  The stream heads upriver and into the darkness of the island - which goes on much, much further than it should have. And the river is much wider here than it should be.

The entrance light is soon lost and it’s pitch dark. Keris can hear that the walls are getting further and further and further away - and also that the waters are getting shallower. And then there’s a light in the distance, just as they run aground.

Keris lets the brand on her forehead light up, Illuminated in green, she can see hundreds of discarded kayaks - some of them barely more than dust.

“This way,” Sasi says confidently, leading her. The temperature drops, getting colder and colder, and they emerge from a cave entrance which looks out over a vast, sweeping salt plane which shimmers in silvery-white as far as the eyes can see, under a black sky.

Sasi takes a deep breath. “I like the quiet of the Desert, sometimes,” she says to the thin air.

And then a bonfire of light - blue and white and blackness - springs to life around her. Her forehead burns like the Green Sun himself.

“Mighty Cecelyne, Lawgiver, Justice-Giver!” Sasi calls out to the dark sky. “We thank you! We praise you, now and forever.” Music swells around her, and Keris hears heartbreakingly beautiful songs erupt from the darkness of the cave. They’re singing a hymn in Old Realm, a song of devotion and praise in a minor key which laments that the Endless Desert has not consumed all. Sasi leads the choir, her voice heartbreakingly beautiful as she sings her lament.

((Per 5 + Expression 5 + Yozi High Priestess Style 3 + Style bonus 1 + 10 XD + 1wp = 24 + <1> = 15 successes))

The hymns continue for a long time, under the timeless, sunless sky of the Endless Desert. As they rise to a conclusion - and a refrain that the Desert once-more shall pass her laws over all - Sasimana raise the bird.

“Let the Desert devour this offering!” she calls out, and tosses it high into the air.

Sand springs from her hands and flays it to the bone. Eroded remnants fall down, and around them the sand melts into strange patterns of blue glass.

Raising one hand, the choir of what sounds like thousands cuts off as one as Sasi’s whim.

Keris’s eyes, when she turns back, are soft and awed and liquid in a way that isn’t, for once, at all sexual. She opens her mouth, hesitates for a moment, and then closes it again. Words seem inadequate. Instead, she motions wordlessly at the expanse of the desert and extends a hand.

Sasi is bending over the molten glass. Finally she nods. “A sign,” she says. She points across the salt flats, in a certain direction. “This way.”

Keris sheds the Amulet and stores it away in Dulmea’s hands. Naked on the sand, she brings out her armour and touches the back of the neck to open it. Sasi waits patiently as she limbers up and gets used to it, and when the armour unfurls once more, she flows onto Keris’s body as a coat of liquid shadow.

The silver petals fold back in on themselves, liquid metal racing down to the ends of Keris’s hair until nothing; not one square inch of skin, is exposed to the outside world. Keris turns her blank-masked face to the agatae, beckons them into the air with a gesture, and begins the five-day run.

It’s rather nice to have company on the crossing, though the icky feeling of oily _yuck_ starts to get naggingly uncomfortable by the second morning. Nonetheless, Sasi not only gives Keris someone other than Dulmea and the children to talk to - a largeish chunk of Venusday is in fact spent passing messages back and forth between Sasi and Haneyl as Sasi gets to know her daughter by proxy - but she also provides advice.

Advice which is very useful, when it comes to plotting a course that won’t be noticed by agents of the Red Moon while avoiding the many and varied hazards of the Desert. Keris may be immune to molten flesh-flaying glassstorms and collapsing cliff-dunes and more or less anything else the desolation can throw at her, but their agatae - and all of their stuff - are not.

With the help of Sasi - and also the help of Haneyl, the little girl insists, even though she’s... uh, not exactly at home in a desert and spends a lot of time criticising it for the lack of trees - Keris easily navigates the hazards like the salt plains covered in molten glass just below the surface and the bit where rocks started falling out of the sky onto a cratered landscape and of course the pirates.

Well, Keris didn’t really evade the pirates. She more ‘happened’ to them. Which is why there is a precious cargo of Malfean emeralds now in her Domain, which Haneyl is trying to stop Rathan from eating.

But apart from that minor acquisition, it’s five days later when the green glow on the horizon indicates the presence of the Demon City. As soon as Keris sees the glow, she starts to hear the caterwauling of instruments and the roar of billions of voices raised in music.

This, she decides, is where a thick helmet is actually something of a boon. It means that the volume of the noise is merely “far too fucking loud”, as opposed to “cripplingly agonising”. Keris stuffs her ears with hair and waves one of the agata down close enough to hear her.

“You know the drill,” she calls up over the rapid-fire cacophony of its wingbeats. “If we’re attacked, Portal away from the fight and make your way to Princess Sasimana’s townhouse! We’ll meet you there!”

It trills it acknowledgement and rises up to follow her at a distance more comfortable for her poor ears, and Keris licks her lips.

“Well then,” she murmurs, half to herself and half to Sasi. “Here we go.”

They enter the city from the desert; a silver shadow from the silver wastes. Keris doesn’t bother following the roads; she heads straight up and over buildings; arrowing towards the bridges up to the next level, occasionally grabbing one of the agata’s legs to hitch a lift up higher than she can jump. The stealth of the Swamp is no use to her while she’s moving this quickly, but she employs as much of Dulmea’s advice on going unseen as she can, heading for the Althing by as quick a route as she can manage.

Keris considers how easy it might be to swim, since the Demon Sea connects all layers she surfaces in. But no. When Sasi is trying to hide from one of her souls, it’s probably a good idea to keep far, far away from her waters.

So she does it the street rat way. She goes and asks some first circles how to head inwards, and then punches them when they lie to her. Since she entered through one of the main gates, it’s only a day-long sprint during which the tomescu scream twice across a plaza you could lose An Teng in to find one of Ligier’s shining roads which spiral up into the sky - bridges of brass and green flame which have Haneyl cooing loudly in Keris’ head.

They want a sacrifice to Unquestionable Ligier to travel on the roads, though. Of course they do.

((The gate-guards are looking for a Resources 4 sacrifice as payment.))  
((Hmm. Did I mention Keris going around and murdering some slavers with that Sacrifice spell after the last downtime period?))  
((I... don’t recall.))  
((Hang on...))  
((... damn, I don’t think she did. Sigh. Fiiiine.))

Unquestionable Ligier is... well, an Unquestionable, and probably has ways of knowing - and responding - to people using his roads without permission. Ululaya hasn’t made an appearance yet, but she could at any time, and Keris can feel Sasi trembling against her. And while she could probably sneak around the guards or bully them into compliance or find another route, it would take _time_. Time that’s slipping away.

These reasons combined are still only barely enough to convince Keris to hand over the extortionate payment in gems and gold from the Mercy’s treasure. Even then, she doesn’t do so without considerable grumbling and glaring at them, caste mark flared, for holding her up. Sasi promises to replace them with gold and rubies and emeralds galore, but it’s just not the _same_ when you’re _given_ the pretty things. Or when they’re made from, like, sand and dirt and stuff. They’re still gorgeous and precious and _hers_ , but the thrill isn’t there.

It does get them running again, at least. And Haneyl seems to be happy about the bridge.

She’s making delighted little noises in the back of Keris’ head as they ascend over the city - far faster than even Keris’ running should take her - and the vistas of Malfeas sprawl out revealing the sheer immensity of the Demon Realm. And then it’s past one layer, then another, then another, speeding faster and faster and faster and faster until the layers are a blur...

... and then in perhaps six hours, certainly less than one scream of the tomescu, the blur slows down again and Keris sees...

... the light.

It’s so bright! And pretty! There’s metal everywhere. Gold and bronze - and it’s shiny gold and bronze, not corroded or verdigris. The buildings are all artwork, every one of them. It’s still Malfeas, but only the streets are basalt. And the demons are dressed lavishly and... and... it’s so very very pretty!

The green sun is low overhead here - such that he’s many times the size of Creation’s sun, but despite that his light is magnanimous and warm.

Um. Keris opens her eyes wide as she steps off the bridge. Oh. She didn’t mean to come here. Wherever this is. It’s... it actually looks quite a bit like bits of the inside of the Conventicle, except it’s an entire level!

Oh, Keris thinks. This is... prooooooobably the innermost layer of the Demon City. The entire layer is the domain of Ligier, the Green Sun. Personally. Some say he designed every single building on this layer, and rebuilt them from how Malfeas would have been normally.

It reminds her of

_ Meru. It’s like Meru. It’s not quite the right colour, but the only place he’s seen like it is Meru. Arumoh squeezes his hand as the two of them trail behind the much more senior and important members of the diplomatic delegation to the first and prime among the Demon Princes. _

something.

“... wow,” she says, taking a few steps and getting lost in the architecture of two nearby towers that grow and twine around one another in a way that seems impossible to draw, let alone build. Closer to, the reliefs in a shimmering wall of polished brass with... Keris doesn’t even know how the flecks of bronze and gold have been added like splinter-highlights under the metal’s skin, but it gives the surface a texture and subtle play of colour that’s nothing short of gorgeous. And... and that fountain! The basalt structure is impressive, but the silverwork that frames it... Keris can certainly judge _that_ with the eye of a master craftswoman. And does. And all but swoons. She’s not sure _she_ could work silver so finely or so precisely.

It’s like an artist’s paradise here. If this is how the Exalted of the First Age lived, no wonder they grew to see themselves so far above mortals. The works of men must have seemed like eyesores to those used to these surroundings.

((o keris. she r weak 2 pretty things and art.))

“Shiny,” Rathan says, gnomically. He pauses. “Mama, Hanny fell over! Hanny go ‘eeeeeeeeee’.”

“Uh huh...” Keris murmurs, lost in her own little world. Oh... oh come on, really? Even the _sound_ of the layer is gorgeous! The buildings have been set up so that the wind moving through them _hums_ in harmony with itself, and the cacophony of the lower city... well, it’s not any quieter here, but it’s a single grand overarching tune, instead of a million competing ones.

She’s vaguely aware that her feet are taking her somewhere, but is too lost in her surroundings to pay attention to where.

“Keris,” Sasi whispers sharply. “Why is everything outside even more painfully bright?”

“Mmm?” says Keris. Then she blinks as the word ‘painful’ trickles down and wakes up several bits of her brain that had been blissfully dozing off. “Painful- oh! Oh no! Uh... the bridge took us the wrong way. We’re... I think we’re on the innermost layer. Unquestionable Ligier’s domain.”

Sasi squirms under Keris armour. “So one the place in Malfeas where there are absolutely no shadows and even the Dragon seldom goes. Wonderful. Nowhere to hide.”

“Sorry. I can... yeah, hold on, I’ll head back to the Conventicle. I thought the bridge was...” Keris shakes her head. “Never mind. Sorry. I’m sorry, I’ll get us out of here and back home.” She glances around for the agatae, who are... um, missing. Maybe they didn’t get as turned around as she did. Shrugging it off, she sets off at a sprint. The Conventicle is on one of the inner layers; she’s close now. It shouldn’t take her long to reach it.

((Do you want to go there, or have some encounter here?))  
((Well, hmm. Keris is now feeling guilty about how SHE GOT THEM LOST and so SASI IS IN PAIN, so she’ll probably head out asap. Encounters later; home for now. Unless Ligier has enough of a reason to turn up himself, but I don’t think there’s anything that urgent that he knows about yet.))  
((Yeah, he was just mildly curious about the Infernal who flared at his guards.))

Ligier’s boulevards and streets are wide and extravagant, and are easy to navigate compared to normal Malfean slums. Keris finds some bridges belonging to Jacinct and follows them across several layers. She’s thankful that she found that Ligier bridge earlier - this takes her nearly half a day just to cross four layers, although it would have been faster if she hadn’t had to avoid the Dragon casting a vast shade over almost an entire layer.

Eventually, though, she arrives at a - very much welcome - home. She stops off at Sasi’s townhouse first, dropping her lover off, and Sasi seems to properly relax for the first time in over a week. In several weeks, in fact. Several months, maybe.

Keris relaxes too, because it is really, _really_ good having the icky sticky yucky clammy cold shadow off her skin. Not that she doesn’t like Sasi touching her! She just... doesn’t really like Sasi touching her, when she’s like that. And sort of wants to have a bath now.

“Do you want me to stay with you?” she asks nonetheless. “Or to come over to my house? Just in case?”

“I... I believe I will be fine for now, dear one,” Sasi says, rolling her shoulders before resting one hand on her swollen abdomen. No, Keris realises, her abdomen which was _not_ swollen before and now is... is inflating until it’s back to its previous stage of pregnancy. “Oh... oh my. She... she just took quite some time to cease being shadow.”

That causes both of them to hesitate in worry, but Keris is forced to admit that... uh, there’s not really much she can do to help if there is something wrong, and Sasi seems to have the situation well in hand. So after a parting kiss or three, and some victorious cuddling, she sets out for her own townhouse. Where she can have a bath. And some apples. And get someone to clean her armour. And see the kids again. Sasi can get one of the agatae to deliver her things once she’s unpacked her own.

Being in something of a hurry for the bath, it’s not until she’s actually in the water and munching on her second apple; the armour stood open and rigid in the middle of the pool-sized tub with water up to its waist, that her adjutant catches up with her.

“Mehuni!” Keris greets him, in a much better mood. “How have things been?”

The shadow bows sinuously. It’s funny how his shadow-ness isn’t the same as Sasi’s shadow-ness. He’s a thing made of shadow. She’s something weird. “Things have gone well, my lady,” he says. “Your human waiflings progress and are still all alive, and your estate has suffered no great misfortunes while you were gone.”

“Excellent,” Keris sighs happily. “I’ll see them once I’m clean and rested. I just spent the better part of a week running across Cecelyne and the City.” She dunks her head under the steaming water for a moment and purrs happily before surfacing as a thought strikes her. “Is Naan in the City, do you know?”

Mehuni bows again. “My lady, I believe he is in residence, though I have heard that he is currently on a safari hunting some akuma of the Swamp which has been seen a few layers from here.”

“Huh,” she huffs. “Fun. Well, I’ll see him later too. Thank you, Mehuni.”

Her adjutant bows and leaves her in peace. And apparently thinks ahead, because when Keris emerges from the bathroom an hour or so later; Piu, Shan and Yelm are waiting for her outside. From the looks of things, they’ve recently had a wash, and are outfitted in clothing that not only fits, but which suits them rather well.

Keris is aware that there are bags under her eyes, and while her body feels as light as ever, her thoughts and reactions have the sluggish air that comes from six days spent catnapping her way through the Endless Desert in considerable discomfort. Nonetheless, she manages an only-slightly-strained smile and a hug for each of them.

“How have you been?” she asks after doing her best to ignore the initial almost-certainly-rehearsed respectful greeting. She sets off for her bedroom; the children following like ducklings after a welcoming wave of her hand. “What have you been up to?”

Piu does a wide - and almost certainly practiced - smile at her. Along with a pirouette. “I’ve been dancing,” she says brightly. “A lot! They say I’m a natural!”

Keris lets out a breath of genuine amusement. “I’m sure you are,” she agrees. “I’ll have to play for you to dance to, later. Shan, Yelm? What about you two?”

“I’ve been learning healing,” Shan offers quietly. His eyes stray to his little sister, who gives a very put-upon sigh. Keris gets the impression this has been brought up before, but she can’t really fault his motives.

Yelm just shrugs. “Not much,” he mumbles, ducking his head moderately respectfully. “Been working with one of the sodalities now and then. I got to help steer a sand-skimmer!” His enthusiasm wanes quickly as Keris raises her eyebrows, and he goes back to affecting disinterest, or at least trying to. “Which was, uh, good.”

Keris makes noises of interest and listens attentively until they arrive back at her room, but she really is too tired to spend any more time with them, or indeed conscious. She gives them another quick group hug at the door, falls onto her bed, and is blissfully asleep as soon as she hits the pillow.

Haneyl is gleefully babbling to her as soon as Keris opens her eyes in her dream.

“Is this the City?!” she says brightly. “I’ve never seen it before! Grandmother talked about it but I’ve never seen it and it’s so pretty and there’s so much green and the emeralds are really pretty and the shiny place with the really big sun was the best best place ever!”

Keris grins. “That was Unquestionable Ligier’s domain,” she tells her daughter. “The Green Sun. You know your fires? They come from him - he’s the Demon City’s heart.”

Haneyl’s eyes go wide. “I... I have to make my forest more like that,” she whines. “Keris! Keris! Um... Mama! You need to help me! We need to make lots of pretty things! And you need to make them too so he’ll... he’ll like them!”

Keris can’t help it. She bursts out laughing, drawing Haneyl up onto her lap and cuddling her. “I’ll do my best,” she promises. “But why don’t we keep you a secret until we’re sure that we have something that he’ll definitely like? That way we can make sure you can make a really good first impression.”

Haneyl clings to Keris, all sweet-smelling and flowery. “Yes,” she agrees reverently. “Can... can we do some painting together?”

“We can,” Keris agrees happily. “And then you can go and pick where you want to hang yours in the art palace while I go and find Rathan.” She gives Haneyl a mock-stern look. “And no stealing things out of the art palace,” she warns. “That’s where art is meant to go. It sort of loses the point of showing everyone what pretty things you can make if you take it away and hide it in your tree where nobody but you can see it.”

Keris does indeed do some painting with Haneyl, some toddling practice with Rathan - who would rather prefer it to be swimming practice, but Keris doesn’t want him falling behind on knowing how to walk - and wakes much refreshed after some dreamless sleep away from even the Domain. Over the next week or so, she throws herself into planning and study with a will; absorbing demon lore from heranhal tutors on the refinement and use of vitriol, then using that and her knowledge of silversmithing to construct models and sketches of what she wants.

Not all of them work. In fact, quite a few of them comprehensively fail to work, and more than one gets smashed in a rage. But she picks up the pieces - or at least, her assistants do - and recycles them, always iterating closer. Bit by bit, she makes progress.

And then comes Calibration, and she sets her work aside for the week of celebration. Of orgies and parties and demonstrations in front of cheering crowds; of exaltation and glory and being treated, in general, like a princess-champion of the greatest City ever to exist since the dawn of time.

It’s on the second day of Calibration, at a party where an Unquestionable has somehow arranged to get their hands on food from every realm of existence for a festival of extreme and incredible glutton - there’s even an entire table of Underworld pomegranates - that Keris has a rather unpleasant encounter.

The woman who seemed to seek her out is a tiny dark skinned woman, white hair cropped short save for two locks, which are pinned in loops. She’s dressed in armour made of small scales of what looks like tarnished gold, and has a single-headed axe on her back. “Ah,” she says, inclining her head, “Keris of Firewander, Scourge of Adorjan.”

Keris hasn’t seen Orange Blossom in quite a long time. The Chosen of the Principle has been... well, she hasn’t been around. And she hasn’t ever seen the very tall brown-haired woman next to her, with rough-hewn Northern features.

“Clathe Yomorigor,” she says in a very thick northern accent. “Scourge.”

Already wincing internally and hoping for a distraction, Keris nods respectfully. “Respected Orange Blossom,” she says to the woman she worked under before... well, before Sasi. They had argued over who would get her for their area during her first Althing, she remembers. That was a whole year ago. It seems both longer and shorter, somehow.

Orange Blossom had won that argument, Keris recalls. But then she hadn’t been there when everything had gone wrong in Matasque. And Sasi had. So Keris had followed Sasi; who’d helped her even when she didn’t have to, while the coven leader who was meant to be responsible for her had been off attending to her territory in Malfeas. Of course she had. It had been... the obvious choice.

It occurs to Keris for the first time that Orange Blossom may not quite agree with this point of view.

“You look... well,” Orange Blossom says. Oh yes, that was the other thing, Keris remembers. They might have slept together a few times, because Orange Blossom normally didn’t like girls, but didn’t seem to mind them when she was on drugs.

“Well-cooked, maybe,” Keris quips before she can stop herself. “The heat in the Southwest is... well.” She shakes her head, hastily changing topic to one less likely to bring up any irritable memories. “Peer Yomorigor is working with you in the Scavenger Lands?”

Wait, no. That would just remind her of why she needed a replacement. Dammit! Of course Rathan had to be asleep just when she could use his help! Keris trains a wary ear to Orange Blossom’s breathing, judging how annoyed she still is.

Oh yes, she’s annoyed. Her breath catches. Uh... she may not have found a replacement for Keris, she thinks guiltily.

“Hardly,” Clathe says. “I am in the North. Haslanti.”

“... ah,” says Keris, wincing a little again. “Well, you... uh... look well. As well.” She squirms a little, avoiding Orange Blossom’s stare. “I, uh, was wondering if Naan was back from his safari, actually. Have you seen him here?”

“Covered in blood in the arena, no doubt,” Orange Blossom says crisply.

“Right. I’ll just. Uh. Go give him my greetings.” Keris dips a shallow bow, unable to quite summon up her indignation at the other woman’s absence in her hour of need under the steady, cool irritation being pointed at her like a blowtorch. “Peer Yomorigor, nice meeting you.”

Somewhat less than gracefully, she retreats.

Keris hears some rumours here. Yes. Uh. Quite a few, actually. From what she hears, Orange Blossom has done very nicely for herself. All that focus she’s been putting into Malfeas-side things means that she now has her own holdings - and she’s apparently leveraging that into providing things for other parts of the Reclamation in return for other favours and debts.

Meanwhile, she hears suspiciously little about Clathe Yomorigor. Well, she thinks. Perhaps the other woman is relatively new. Or just hasn’t done much that’s impressive yet. Or something. Keris is much more interested in tracking down Naan - who she does indeed find covered in blood in the arena, receiving the exultant roars of the crowd.

There is admittedly a rather awkward bit after Keris jumps down to greet him before realising that he’s only about halfway through the series of akuma and behemoths that are being released one-to-four at a time into the arena, but that resolves itself neatly and provides a nice background to them catching up on what they’ve both been doing. Even if it does force them to pause occasionally while they punch and stab a giant flightless terror bird made of bone and fingernails with three burning serpents for a head to death.

Keris, it transpires, is not the only one who has been dabbling in the gifts of the All-Hunger Blossom. Though she is pleased to be able to brag that she got there first.

Naan grins at her. “Let’s def-eat them!” he bellows, to laughter from the crowd.

Sasi invites Keris back to her place that evening. Much to her disappointment, Sasi is fully clothed and instead has lots of documentation and paperwork with her. “So,” she says, “how goes the work on your presentation for the third day?”

Keris opens her mouth. Keris closes her mouth. “Presentation?” Keris asks, weakly.

Sasi stares at her. “The thing we have to do every year on our accomplishments and achievements?” she prompts. “And... oh. Last year, you didn’t have a full year to report on.”

“Last year I’d only just got here,” Keris mutters. “I guess... there was everything in Matasque with the, uh, ambassador from Thorns. Then we struck a blow against Nexus for Unquestionable Jacinct,” she grins nervously, “and then I went to An Teng with you and took down the Mercy, fired the docks, I’ve been building relationships with the local Lintha and...” she purses her lips. “Do you think it’s worth mentioning the cults I’m making for the Shashalme? I mean, I can use them to lean on the Realm Dynasts from inland as well as pressuring them from the sea, once they’re a bit bigger.”

“There are fifty of us... well, forty nine,” Sasi says. “We all only have a limited amount of time. You’re trying to sell yourself as well as possible to impress your peers - and the onlookers. Unquestionables.”

Keris pauses. “Is... that a yes or a no?” she asks, uncertain. “Wait, wait. Hang on.” Sasi obligingly waits as Keris reorients several mental pieces into a more comprehensible alignment. “Ohhhh,” she says after a moment. “I get it. It’s basically boasting time. Make everything you’ve done sound as good as you can, but don’t lie and say you did something you didn’t, ‘cause someone will probably check.”

Sasi nods. “Precisely.”

“And...” Keris grins. “In that case I do wanna mention that the Shashalme approached me and I’ve been seeding cults for them in my spare time, since then others might want to hire me for work as well.”

“You do have to balance that with not making enemies, especially if the Unquestionable would rather keep their actions quiet,” Sasi cautions her.

“Oh, yeah. Hmm. But I can say that I’ve been helping you?”

“Yes.” Sasi taps her fingers against her leg. “Slaying one of the emissaries of the Mask of Winters should count for a lot,” she says.

Keris sags a little. “That’s... not something I want to boast about, though.”

“But I will be mentioning it and so will Geasa, Keris,” Sasi says seriously. “And with such an achievement, fewer questions will be be asked about certain... other things. Remember what you promised about the crown. Do you want them to find out about that?”

Sagging further, Keris nods. “I know, I know. I’ll mention it. Brag, even. I’d just...” Her mouth twists for a moment, and she shakes her head. “Never mind. I’m going to go paint. I’ll get Mehuni to remind me when to go to the Althing.”

“No, no, I felt I’d help you,” Sasi says gently. “I suspected you’d forgotten or perhaps didn’t realise the seriousness.”

Keris’s laugh is entirely without mirth. “Trust me, Sasi. I realised how serious it was when I did it. I’m not going to forget.” She turns in a flutter of hair and silks. “I’ll be painting. In my studio. Alone.”

“Keris,” Sasi says, a little catch in her voice, “when I said ‘serious’, I was talking about this chance to impress the Unquestionable - especially since Deveh will be trying to make _us_ look bad.”

Keris stops in the doorway, her shoulders rigid for a moment, then softens by degrees. After a moment, she moves back into the room, though she lets her hair hang down to hide her face. “Okay,” she says, and she sounds tired as she says it. “Okay, I do understand, Sasi; I do. This is important. We need to impress them. We have to seem more...” she waves a lock of hair as she searches for the word, “crebi... cred... valuable and important than he is. And that means holding up the big impressive thing we did and waving it like a flag and... I get it. Honest; I get it.” She sits down heavily, half-throwing herself onto a comfortable chair. “But if I’m going to, I really would like to do some painting first. Or music. Or something to take my mind off what I’m going to be bragging about..”

Sasi smiles at her. “Then I will come with you too. I’ll trade you some demonstration of Realm ink styles for anything you care to offer. And I’ve been missing the parties for fear that the Blood Red Moon will be there.”

((... uh. Okay. I basically rolled to see how much Sasi would be able to pull Keris out of her melancholy, and then, uh... the 2-dot “Rat, I Miss You” roll got 2 sux, while 4-dot Sasi-love, um, failed. So. Uh.))

Keris returns the smile, but it’s wistful, and tinged in old pain. “Maybe after? I think I’d like to just... remember, for now. And I’m not sure I’ll be good company while I do.” She stands, and kisses Sasi on the cheek. “I’ll come meet you before the Althing; we can go there together.”

Sasi nods. “Very well,” she says gracefully. “I will see you later.”


	2. Chapter 2

Keris paints. She’s working in black and white chalk and red paint. The canvases in the studio quickly fill with endless repetitions of the same figure. When she runs out of canvases - the servants are too slow to replace them - she moves onto the walls. Always the same subject.

Rat. Rat. Rat.

Many of them are sketches, barely fleshed out. Shape and motion, splashes of colour - the essence of the personality bleeding though the lines. Others are more detailed, with his features evident - the pale skin, the honest, friendly gaze, the charming grin.

She ends up in front of a wide sheet, detailing him as he might have been. If he hadn’t vanished. If he hadn’t died. Her age, with her beside him; arms around each other's shoulders, grinning conspiratorially but triumphant. And behind them, the vague lines of a house take shape...

_ “Tell me a story, Rat,” _   
__  
_ “‘Bout what?” _   
__  
_ “Our house.” _   
__  
_ “Again? You ever get tired of that one, Kit?” _   
__  
_ “Just tell me it.” _   
__  
_ “Fine, fine. Lady’s choice. So, you know, one day we’re gonna get outta here. Pull a big job. Be rich as a Cynis.” _   
__  
_ “Which ones’re they ‘gain?” _   
__  
_ “The rich ones, dunghead. I think. Anyway, we’ll be real rich. Rich enough to get outta here. You can hire people to go find your parents, pay someone to go scrag Makoa. But they can handle that. What we’ll do, we’ll find somewhere to live. A big house, with, like, a river running behind it. A hundred doors an’ windows, so we always have a way out. Fires an’ food in every room. You can grow apples in the orchard...” _   
__  
_ “It’ll have an orchard?” _   
__  
_ “Kit, I seen you pass up a shot at a moneybag the size’a my fist for a bag of apples. I’ll plant you an field full of apple trees myself once we get there. You’d whine forever if I didn’t. Anyway, so we’ll get this house, an’ once we’ve got it the way we like it...” _

Quiet tears trickle down Keris’s cheeks. Eventually, her brushes still. She doesn’t move, except to huddle backwards so she can take in the painting as a whole. She’s still sitting there, staring at it blankly, when an angyalka servant’s music approaches and a hesitant knock sounds at the door. No, Keris realises, the sound is in her head. It’s Dulmea’s music, but not her knock.

“Hmm?” she murmurs absently. “S’it time for the boasting?”

“Not quite, child,” Dulmea says. She sounds shocked. “How to put this. There is a message left for you in front of my door. It says ‘Please come find me’, and it’s signed ‘Eko’.” She pauses. “It is... uh, also written in ink. Not carved into the floor.”

Keris blinks. “Wait. What? Ink?” She pauses. “How can you read it through the ink stains and the paper being shredded?”

“It’s not damaged,” Dulmea says uneasily.

Keris takes a moment to process that, and decides that she doesn’t believe a word of it. “Let me see,” she says, sinking to the floor cross legged and dropping into meditation. Her eyes open in Dulmea’s tower, and she takes the note her mother passes her.

It is, as Dulmea said, undamaged. There aren’t any ink stains from pens falling apart on it, either. The handwriting is a little sloppy, perhaps, but it’s something Keris would more expect from Haneyl than from Echo.

“... maybe she got one of her friends to write it?” she hazards. “And, um. Sign it... for her?”

“Perhaps,” Dulmea says. “Or perhaps it’s a prank by Haneyl?”

“Nah, you can tell it’s not that,” Keris grins, “because her standards wouldn’t let her write it anything less than perfectly even if she was trying to frame Echo, and her handwriting is all pretty and flowery. Sometimes literally flowery.”

She tucks the note into a pocket. “Well, something strange is up. I haven’t got her the gloves that’d let her do this herself yet. I’ll go see what’s going on.” She purses her lips. “She’ll be somewhere Ruinwards, probably.”

Kissing Dulmea on the cheek, Keris sets out, grinning. If Echo wants to play a game of hide and seek, she has a nasty surprise coming. After all, she follows in Keris’s wake. Finding her is as easy as invoking her power.

... she’ll play fair, though. At least for now. Closing her eyes as she hits the edge of the city and starts into the shanty town that’s grown against the Ruinwards wall, Keris lets her heart guide her to the feel of her eldest daughter.

But it turns out to be a very short chase. Because waiting for her, sitting on top of an icy building, is a little girl, surrounded by whispering, giggling szelkeruby. She looks to be about eight years old, and her skin is paler than Keris’. She’s all elbows and knees - and both her elbows and her knees are grazed. Her long hair is as black as coal and moves with prehensile grace to casually juggle some pebbles. Her clothing is... peculiar, and seems to be entirely made of woven silk ribbons, stacked with layer upon layer upon layer in white and red. And she’s beaming at Keris with a wide grin.

A wide grin with teeth with white jade.

“Mama,” the girl says in a casual Nexan burr. “Look at me! And what I can do!”

Keris actually trips. She’ll later swear before the Endless Desert herself that something interfered or snarled around her feet, but in truth she’s so surprised that she simply forgets to put the next foot down in front of the last one. She goes tumbling off the edge of a building, catching herself only with a reflexive loop of hair around a chimney that lets her pull herself up onto the girl’s roof.

For a couple of astonished heartbeats, Keris just stares.

“... Echo?” she whispers, her voice hushed with awe. “Is... is that you?”

Echo lets put a high-pitched squee. “Yes! It’s me! When Cally thingie started, I was different! It’s so amazing! I’m wonderful! Look at me!” She springs up, and twirls, ribbons flying. “I’m so pretty! I look like you and I look like Other Mama too! My face looks more like you, but I have her teeth and hair colour, but I have your hair so I can juggle things!”

Looking her over... yes, Keris realises, she does look like... uh, like... um... “Other Mama”. She can see the hints of the Silent Wind in Echo’s features - not just the colour of her hair and the gleaming white jade of her teeth, but something about the sharpness of her cheekbones and her build seem subtly different from Keris herself.

She’s a few shades paler, too, and there are probably other things that don’t matter at all because Keris is already moving forward fast enough that she sends a couple of szelkeruby tumbling over and doing what she’s wanted to do properly ever since Echo’s little breakdown about breaking her pretty things whenever she touches them.

Keris gathers up her eldest daughter in an eight-limbed hug and holds her as close as she can, spinning her round and round as she squeals in joy.

Echo merely clings back, making delighted noises. Her eyes well up and overflow with tears. “This is the bestest best best day ever,” she manages sobbing from sheer joy. “And... and...” she loses herself in burbling.

“There now, it’s okay,” whispers Keris, kissing her forehead gently. “I’m here, I’ve got you.” She hoists Echo a little higher and heads off at a sprint, outpacing the wind-cherubs to give them some privacy. “It is, isn’t it? Calibration, huh. I wonder how it...” She shakes her head, dismissing the thought in favour of more relevant fare and winking. “Do you want to go surprise Dulmea with this? She was very confused by your note.”

“I love surprises!” Echo squeals. “Oooh! Oooh! Does that mean I get to wear the princess crown and the princess robe? Instead of Hanny!”

Keris raises an eyebrow. “Well, you _could_ ask for that,” she says. “But, you know, I’m going to the Althing in a few hours. Where all the Unquestionable their souls meet. And - you were very little the last time we were here, so you might not remember - there’s one demon who can make special clothes, as strong as my Amulet’s outfits. Her name is Berengiere.”

She strokes Echo’s hair, navigating the city wall and heading back to Dulmea’s tower. “You remember when I promised you I’d get you ribbons you could wear all the time? Well, I’m planning on asking her to make them just for you. Along with a special pair of gloves so you can touch anything you like and not break it while you’re wearing them.”

Echo just blurgles further in even more grateful thanks. “‘m sorry,” she manages eventually. “W’rds are hard. H-had to pr-practice for two... two days before I left the note.”

Keris cuddles her tighter and nods understandingly. “I had trouble picking up my second language too,” she confides. Echo looks at her oddly, and Keris tickles her under the chin. “After all, you already know your miming language. So learning to speak...”

She pauses, and frowns. “Actually, hang on. You _understand_ me whether I’m speaking in Firetongue or Rivertongue or Old Realm. And you can also do that miming thing. Does... does that mean you speak more languages than I do?” She gives Echo a mock-offended glare and taps her on the nose chidingly. “And you made your wind-cherub friends first as well! You cheeky little brat, stop going faster than me! That’s the opposite of your job!”

“Don’t be j’lous just ‘cause I’m better,” Echo says teasingly. “‘m a big sister anyway. Gotta be the best.”

Keris would respond to that, but arrives at Dulmea’s tower before she can think of a good comeback. She heads straight up the side rather than going through the interior and slips in through a window; Echo still clinging to her like a limpet. Winking at the younger girl and putting a hair tendril to her lips, Keris shifts her around onto her back and lets her hair hang loose around her shoulders and down her back to hide Echo from view.

“It’s okay, Mama!” she announces as she jogs back into the room. “Echo learnt a new trick, that’s all. She’s very proud of it, but I don’t think there’s anything to worry about.” She tactically wanders closer to Dulmea, feeling Echo tense with gleeful excitement on her back, ready to pop out. “She’s just learnt a new word or two. Like, say...”

A white-jade grin bursts out of the hair over Keris’s shoulder, followed by a tiny ball of mischievous mayhem.

“Boo!”

Dulmea drops her tea cup. “Oh my,” she says faintly.

She is met with two nearly identical grins - somewhat disconcerting in just how similar they are, in fact. “It happened as Calibration started,” Keris explains. “And look at her!” She picks Echo up from behind and spins her around until they collapse into a shrieking, laughing ball of coiling hair and merciless tickling.

“Oh my,” Dulmea repeats.

“I think you broke her,” Echo says in a stage whisper.

“Maybe a hug will snap her out of it,” Keris whispers back, mock-solemn and just as audible. A thought occurs to her.

‘actually,’ she subvocalises, quieter than Dulmea can hear - quieter even than someone standing right next to her could hear. ‘how good is your hearing? as good as mine?’

“It’s really really good,” Echo whispers back. “I can hear _everything_. Like I can hear that Hanny is marching her silly toy horsies up and down and telling them to shun the ones whose coats aren’t shiny enough! She’s so funny! And Rathan is coming this way and he’s swimming again. Why doesn’t he run on water, Mama?”

“He likes being wet,” Keris confides at the volume of an ant breath. “He comes from the swimmy bits of me just like you come from the runny bits and Haneyl comes from the hidey bits. Uh, do go hug Dulmea, she’s still staring at you. Maybe poke her to see if she’s still working?”

Echo springs onto Dulmea in a glomp and smothers her with kisses. “Please don’t be broken!” she says brightly. “Oohh! Oooh! We can have tea and I can not break the cups which isn’t my fault because it’s in my nature and I don’t mean to damage things by touching things so it’s not really my fault and I sometimes wish I didn’t do it but that doesn’t make it better so why don’t we use the chance now to have tea because you drink it all the time and I want to know what it tastes like because I had some of my friends try it for me but it didn’t really work because the leaves just swirl around inside them but that’s not really the same because they’re not really drinking it even when they tried pretending they had a mouth and I didn’t know what it was really like when I made them but I tried my best and do you like them so how about tea... oh, I’ve been watching you and I totally know how to do it so where’s the pot because I want to try doing it...”

Echo, apparently, does not need to breathe.

Keris gently detangles her and sets her up with the teapot, ladle and various other implements of the ceremony, which she happily busies herself with. Several of the bits get juggled while not in use. Keris keeps an ear trained on her, and taps Dulmea politely on the shoulder, vaguely impressed that the once-angyalka is still playing though her shock. Albeit on what seems to be some form of mental autopilot, because she’s been repeating the same three bars for the past two minutes.

“Dulmea?” she prompts.

Dulmea looks up at Keris with her liquid eyes. “I... don’t understand,” she says. “She’s talking. And not destroying things.” There’s a shattering of china behind her and a loud ‘ooops’. “... not destroying everything, at least.”

Keris shrugs with a smile. “I told you that wasn’t all there was to her,” she says. “She’ll probably go back after Calibration, but... I think she’ll probably be like this next year as well.” Her smile turns wistful. “She deserves more than a week out of every year, but... I guess we’ll just have to make the most of it.”

“I must say this... somewhat changes my mental image of her...” Dulmea says warily.

“All right!” Echo announces loudly. “All done!” She bounces over with a cup of tea for both Keris and Dulmea, spilling some along her way. “I did it all right and I made it better too!”

((... goddamnit Echo, you go and roll 4 successes on three dice for your tea-making roll))

Keris takes a sip. The tea is quite watery and tastes very lemony, but that’s offset by the fact that it’s incredibly sweet. It’s... actually very drinkable.

“It’s good!” she praises. “Very sweet... uh, Echo, how much have you learnt about Tengese food?” Visions of Echo saturating food with spices spring unstoppably to mind.

Echo bounces up and down. “I haven’t had much food really because I don’t know about food because I didn’t need it before but my tummy sort of hurts so I think I sort of need food now and I tried eating a chell but I couldn’t eat it like you eat things and my hair just got covered in blood when I tried to eat it with my hair so I don’t think I can eat with my hair only with my mouth and I didn’t have any fire so I tried to eat the chell raw and I only ate some of it because it was bigger than me and it was _weird_ \- oh, and I ate all kinds of leaves and stuff I found but a lot of it wasn’t very nice and some of the plants tried to eat me back which was all Hanny’s fault and then I made a new pet to make my ribbons for me after I jumped in a stream to get all the blood off and swimming is good but not as good as running on water and oh I sort of stabbed all the trees that tried to eat me to death and that was fun, wheeee!”

Dulmea coughs. “I see she is trying to fit a year’s worth of talking into five days,” she says, a quiet smile on her face.

Keris shoots her an amused glance and quietly palms an apple out of the nearest bowl of them. Wandering over to Echo, she waits for her daughter’s eyes to light up as she thinks of a new topic, and neatly plugs her mouth with the apple as it opens again.

“Bite,” she advises. “Chew. Enjoy it.”

“Oh! An apple! You like apples! So I bet I’ll like apples too!” Echo crams about half of it into her mouth with the first bite. “Mmpit’s mmmood,” she says, spraying bits of apple over the place.

Keris chuckles. “Yeah, I know. Come on, you little starving menace, let’s get you fed so you don’t jump on any more of Dulmea’s musicians. And, uh. Try to eat them raw.”

“Yay!” Echo cheers.

There’s a wet noise at the door, and a dripping Rathan pokes his head around, holding a blanket of what looks like woven kelp. “Mama,” he says, holding his arms out for a hug. He narrows his eyes and glares at Echo. “Eko, no,” he adds. “Eko no wind, Eko no no talk. No!”

Keris purses her lips, considers her options and scoops Rathan up off the floor. “That’s right, Rathan. Echo is ribbony instead of windy, and talky instead of mimey. Well done for noticing!” She smiles brightly at him, then turns around...

... and deposits him in Echo’s arms. Well, her arms and her hair, which she brings up reflexively to keep from dropping him. They stare at each other, momentarily bewildered.

“I think,” Keris announces, “that we should all go get fishies to eat. Rathan can show us where they are, then Echo can kill them all, and if we can find her, Haneyl can cook them for us with her fire, and then we can all eat them. How does that sound?”

“Fishies!” Rathan says brightly, squirming to cling onto Echo and planting a kiss on her nose. Keris knows how devastatingly charming Rathan can be when he wants to be, and from the expression on Echo’s face, she’s not entirely prepared for how he can be when he’s in skin contact with you.

“Fish is tasty?” Echo asks.

“Fish is very tasty,” Keris confirms. “Especially with some of the spices that I got from Sasi’s kitchens. The non-mouth-on-fire-argh-argh-it-burns ones, I mean.”

“Yay! I’m sure I’ll love fish! After all, you love fish and Rathan loves fish so I’ll love fish!”

“Fishies!”

So together they go fishing, Echo sliding into the water like a dolphin and getting quite distracted playing with her little brother who loves that he has someone he can swim with and show all kinds of shiny rocks and sea life to.

Keris uses the chance to fetch Haneyl too, who is, true to Echo’s hearing, trooping the colour with her horses. She’s made more of them, and several of them have acquired plant-covered lesser demons from elsewhere in the domain. Those ones seem to be her favourite.

“Now, you! And you!” Haneyl declares from her tree throne, her golden crown gleaming in Rathan’s red light. “Run at each other and try to knock your toys off each other’s back! I’ll give a really pretty flower to the winner! But the loser’s going to be laughed at by _everyone_.”

“Does the winner get to carry you around as your riding-horse?” Keris asks, amused. “Or do they not get to do that until they’ve won lots in a row?”

Haneyl pouts at Keris. “Of course none of them have shown themselves to be good enough to be my _only_ pony!” she says. “I ride them all when they’re good! And don’t ride them when they’re bad! They have to be the best! And that means they can’t be lazy and think I’m just going to ride them!”

Keris chuckles. “Well, Echo has learned something new, and since it’s Calibration, we’re all having a meal together. Rathan showed us where to get fishes, and Echo caught them all for us. But it turns out we can’t cook them without some pretty fire to use.” She grins. “Do you want to come along and join us? I hope I count as being good enough to carry you there if you do.”

Haneyl considers, and then holds her arms out imperiously. “Piggyback ride!” she demands.

Keris does her one better, and shapes her hair into a little throne that puts Haneyl’s legs over her shoulders. With her golden robes flowing out behind her, it’s a brief run back to the edge of the Sea, where Rathan is clambering out of the water.

Echo is nowhere to be seen, and Keris remembers with a sinking feeling that not only does she have extremely good hearing, but she also likes playing pranks.

True to form, she’s barely set Haneyl on the ground when the little dryad puts her hands on her hips and stomps. “So what new trick did Echo learn?” she demands, scanning the rooftops. “And where is she?”

A sodden water monster bursts from the depths with a white jade grin and a terrible cry.

“Right here!”

Haneyl shrieks, and burrows into Keris’ hair. The fact that Keris’ hair is big enough that a four year old can hide in it is... a thing.

Keris rolls her eyes. “Really?” she asks Echo. “ _Really?_ Tell me you at least have all the fish.”

“Rathan made a sea monster! I caught it!” Echo says cheerfully, pointing at the low island of dark flesh bobbing up and down in the ocean which hadn’t been there before.

Keris transfers her exasperated look to Rathan, who is squelching his way across the pavement to cling to Keris’s legs with his chubby little hands. He peers up into the mass of hair.

“Eko no funny,” he commiserates solemnly. “No wind, no no talk. Pank a lot.” He turns to wag a finger at Eko. “No pank Hanny!” he tells her.

“Still waiting for an explanation about the sea monster,” Keris points out. “Wait, hang on. When you say he made a sea monster, do you mean in the same way you make all those giant skeletons out in the Ruin?”

Echo nods gleefully. “Only this one was alive and moving until I stabbed it and pretty black ribbons came out! Whoo! I had to do a lot of stabbing! It was really big! That’s why the water is all dark!”

Keris opens her mouth, can’t think of a good response to that, and opts to instead turn and check on Haneyl. Who is glaring at Echo.

“Right then!” she announces, heading that particular argument off at the pass. “In that case, let’s get on with dragging some of the meat ashore while Haneyl starts some pretty fires for us to cook it on.”

Haneyl squares her jaw and glares at Echo. “And I’m going to make plants!” she insists. “Like chillis! And better one! You put herbs and spices in here and I looked at them and I made them better! Me!”

“Oooh! Let’s see!” Echo says happily.

This seems to let the wind out of Haneyl’s sails somewhat, and she glares suspiciously at Echo at first, but then starts sticking her fingers into the ground and babbling on about how her plants are so much better.

Rathan and Keris occupy themselves with hauling the sea monster ashore - it seems to be a giant squidtopuswhaleshark thing that’s unsure of how many beaks or teeth it should have. It’s a bit too big to get the entire thing ashore, so they content themselves with Keris hacking off a largish chunk and Rathan washing it up onto one of the piers, where Keris can then carve wide slices from it for them to season and grill.

Haneyl’s little face grits up as she forces it to cook - with just an edge of fear from Echo’s jibes about ‘not burning it’. Keris provides some help, in between trying to stop Rathan from eating it raw. He seems to like the rubbery tentacles.

... well, maybe it’s okay for him to be chewing on tentacles given he’s teething. All in all, the picnic is a successful one - and her children seem, for once, to be getting along rather well. The highest point, she thinks, is when she begins to play absentmindedly... and Echo joins in with some improvised percussion, followed immediately by Haneyl mimicking Keris’s harp music in a higher key, and Rathan humming a resonant, watery melody over the top of that.

There are still tears on Keris’s cheeks when she opens her eyes to the nervous face of one of her servants, but now they’re ones of happiness rather than grief. She... she has a family, Keris thinks to herself. She... she wishes Rat was here, but... but she named Rathan for him and... and he’s growing up so fast and he’s very cute.

She gathers herself with a sigh, hugs herself happily, and sets off for the Althing Infernal.

((What is she wearing? What styles and subtle markers of affiliation or whatever is she using to try to convey a message about what she’s doing or who she’s siding with or opposed to? This is a social attack, stunted, using Per + Politics as her pool. Poor enough rolls might result in a fashion faux pas.))

The great hall at the heart of the Conventicle is still as grand as Keris remembers it being almost a year ago, when last she was here at an emergency meeting. This time, she enters it with her head held high.

Her souls are still fresh in her mind, and her clothes honour them - a long dress that falls to her ankles rather than her normal thigh-length outfits, with rivers, gusts and petals flowing across the fabric - and out of it, to wind around her braided hair. The twin blades of Ascending Air are sheathed in silver at her hips, and she wears a sash of black and silver that mirrors the colours of Sasi’s hair and shadow-form. The black lead and silver bangle that was once Makoa Kasseni’s heart jingles softly on her wrist.

The last time she was at the Althing, Keris was freshly Exalted, and had no idea what was going on. This time, she is more prepared. Sasi’s warning was enough to give her a heads-up as to the formalities of the occasion, and Keris follows them to the letter. She doesn’t let herself deviate once from the chain of announcements and greetings until she’s sitting firmly in her seat, focusing on Dulmea’s music to quell the nervousness in her belly.

((Not showing any siding with or against signs for any demons, but clearly displaying that she’s part of Sasi’s coven. Also fairly clearly displaying iconography of her patron Yozis.   
3+1+3 Falling Petals {hah! Finally, a formal event with some form of ceremony!}+2 stunt+1 bangle {displaying wealth and taste}+1 Ascending Air {likewise}+4 Kimmy ExD {beauty, charm, grace}=15. 6 sux.))

The main hall of the Althing has shifted since Keris saw it last. Oh, it’s still a great hollow space made of living reddish-pink stone which is warm to the touch, but now bright oilslick flowers creep up the flying buttresses, growing from grey vines. Metagaos has colonised this temple-like space. And the roof is no longer vaulted, but is now open to the Malfean sky. The Green Sun shines directly down, his light gentle and warm and soft. A musical spectacle of almost painful beauty plays in the background, enough that some of the demons that hear it are visibly crying.

Keris flows in, head held high. She has to look beautiful and regal in front of everyone else here - and there are indeed a lot of people here. Worse, there are a lot of Unquestionable here. The central dais is filled with great regal thrones with Unquestionable Ligier here dressed in cloth so fine it makes Haneyl babble in admiration. There are other mighty ones along with him - the Blood Red Moon, Orabilis himself, the Shashalme - who wears their female form and catches Keris’ eye, beaming with a mixture of pride and ownership.

And there are even more mighty demons here, ones who may not have the central dais but who are still here as witnesses and guests. They fill the upper gallery, pack it to its limits with their staff and their retinue and their flunkies. Keris in part wonders how much the Unquestionable are using this as a chance to show off to one another - how much they truly care about the deeds of the Green Sun Princes.

But no. Some of them certainly do care. Like the Blood Red Moon, whose pearl mask flows between expressions with maddening speed and whose red hair wafts around her like she’s underwater.

It’s only once a year, Keris reminds herself. Only once a year. She takes her throne in the inner circle of fifty seats, arranged this time in a semi-circle around the central dais. She has the thirty-seventh seat - she’s moved up several since she last sat here. Sasi, by contrast, is all the way over in the eleventh. They seem to be sorted by age, which means… huh, there are quite a few new joiners that she hasn’t seen before. Including the Clathe woman that was with Orange Blossom (over in thirteenth, and staring daggers at Sasi) recently.

Returning the Shashalme’s glance with a shallow, respectful dip of her head, Keris remains as formal and still as she can while she looks around. She shoots a smile at Sasi from across the circle, studiously avoids Orange Blossom’s glare and peeks with interest at the new arrivals. And more covertly, she keeps an ear trained on the Blood Red Moon and looks around the seats and the upper gallery for the veiled figure of Berengiere. She has, after all, two promises to keep; to Sasi and Echo both.

Unquestionable Lilunu rises from among the other Unquestionable on the dais. She’s even more heartbreakingly beautiful than ever, a terrible, inhuman beauty with her long hair flowing down the back of her robes - which Keris now realises remind her of the robes currently tied around Haneyl’s neck.

Incidentally, Haneyl has been cooing over Sasi’s mode of dress, as well as bickering with Echo over who’s the better princess.

“Unquestionable ones,” she says, in her clear voice. “Peers of the Althing. As the Speaker of the Althing and the Conventicle Infernal, I welcome you within me and call for silence. This session of the Althing is now in progress.”

She clears her throat. “We now begin with a paean to the All-Makers, who are falsely imprisoned and through our ceaseless service shall one day rule all that they created or caused to be.”

Music swells, and Keris has a little time to think.  She spends it going over her speech. It’s boasting, basically. She can watch the others for an idea of how exactly to act as she gives it, so she focuses instead on what she’s accomplished.

What has she accomplished?

She’s worked to topple the Ranamiin dynasty in Matasque, uncovered an Exalted emissary of the Mask of Winters, and slain him. She’s twice broken into the tomb of her Past Life and led two of the Solar Exalted to die in there. She’s thrown Nexus into chaos, slain one of the Councillors and caused the death of another Celestial Exalt, though she might want to wait and see if Sasi mentions that before saying anything about it.

And in An Teng, she’s struck two terrible blows against the Dynasts who earn their wealth there; sinking one of their greatest ships and taking the treasure trove from it, then burning down the docks and casting suspicion on the Tengese themselves. She’s harassed and worried more minor trade ships, and forged an alliance with the Lintha to work together against the Realm’s interests in the South West.

She’s been the first of the Infernal Exalted to take the gifts of the All-Hunger Blossom into herself, and use them in the service of the Reclamation.

Yes, Keris thinks. That seems a pretty successful year. Now she just has to make everyone else think so as well.

Her nerves thrum, and the rest of the speeches by the Unquestionable almost pass her by entirely. And then the other princes begin to speak. It’s going down by order of seniority, which... well, there’s a little bit of her which feels safer. She’s nice and safe in the middle. People might not remember her much.

But oh! Poor Sasi, in 11th! Everyone is watching her.

Keris thinks she looks incredibly beautiful. She’s dressing to accentuate her monochrome looks - except there are also small splashes of colour. Like those green jade earrings that she and Keris stole together.

But then she’s feeling all tense, because Sasi is taking an oddly aggressive tact which... isn’t what she expected. “We have all seen the threat of Thorns!” she rails to the crowd. “The Dead are hungry! The Dead would unmake everything we do! Throughout these years the Dead - and their vile, foul, disgusting masters have been thwarted many times.” Keris thinks she’s playing off the dislike the Unquestionable have for the Dead. “They sought to conquer Matasque in the Scavenger Lands. Myself, Peer Geasea and Peer Keris stopped them and turned their ploy back on itself. The Dead have been acting in the South West and they sought to slay me in Buk Moi. I escaped and the fury of Hell itself was unleashed upon them. Their plans fall to wreck and ruin, and I seek to track down the Dead Exalt who masterminds such things.”

The speech is angry, Sasi letting out her inner rage at the humiliation at Buk Moi - and yet it’s also controlled and planned. She plays people like strings. And Keris is at the end of it left feeling a lot better about Sasi’s prospects than she was at the start. The Blood Red Moon is nodding along to the lurid threats of vengeance and of the plans of the Dead thwarted.

And of course, Unquestionable Jacinct is even more happy than she to hear about how Nexus was cast into chaos for the affront of acting against an Unquestionable in such a manner.

((Sasi - Per + Expression + 10XD + Water Dragon’s Oratory 3 + 1 = 17 successes. Sasi is veeeeeeery convincing. : p)))

Orange Blossom tries her best, bless her. Compared to Sasi’s speech, though, every word comes off worse - and Keris doesn’t think it’s just because Sasi is prettier than her in her eyes. Orange Blossom is obviously annoyed by Sasi’s words and it seems like she’s choking back words about Nexus when it would anger the Unquestionable. And the less said about the fact that she can’t claim a triumph like the slaying of a Dead Exalt in Matasque, the better.

((Poor Blossom. Only 10 successes.))

Keris gets the gut feeling that she isn’t too happy with her - and might even be feeling a bit betrayed by how a mission which was meant to be under her command, the operation in Matasque, has been used to embarrass her.

Naan’s speech is... well, Keris isn’t sure how much he’s exaggerating, but if he isn’t, he’s been having so much fun. Apparently he’s been in the West, and is currently a pirate king and a small island worships him after he ate their volcano god and so saved them from an eruption.

((5 successes, but Keris feels driven to one-up him now.))

By the time Keris’s turn comes around, the guilt has largely been overtaken by nervousness. But Keris is never alone. Her family is always with her.

It’s with Dulmea’s unshakeable poise that she quells the butterflies in her stomach, and Echo’s fearlessness that she stands. It’s with Rathan’s charm that she takes in the intimidating attention directed at her, and Haneyl’s pride that she speaks. And Keris starts her own speech with her most impressive accomplishment up front.

“I first attended this Althing one year ago,” she says, her voice clear, “newly Exalted and utterly inexperienced. Since then, I have been central to the deaths of four of our enemies, both new and ancient. The ambassador of Thorns who sought to snatch Matasque from our grasp - I discovered his presence and lead Peers Sasimana and Geasa to him before striking the killing blow myself. Two of the Solar Exalted who meant to plunder my past life’s tomb in Nexus - I encouraged them to walk into the traps that slew them, then slew the hungry ghost that guarded the place and pillaged it myself. The Lunar who interfered with our vengeance on Nexus...” She draws one of the blades of Ascending Air and spins it in a lighting-fast motion before resheathing it. “I took these blades from his very hands as he fought for his life and left him to die in disgrace and fear.”

Her voice is rising now, becoming more emphatic with every word, with every victory. “The Councillor in Nexus died at my hand along with all the spirits he set to guard him. The Dead struck out against us again in An Teng, and I scoured their shadowland clean. The Realm sent Dragonblooded to guard their ships of precious metals and gems, and I sunk them without effort! The Dynasts mustered the rest of their fleets together, and I burnt them along with their docks! They may try to stop our work as many times as they like, and I will kill each and every one of them!” A pause, and she bows. “I am a Scourge of the Silent Wind, and I will continue to use her gifts in the Reclamation’s cause for as long as our enemies stand.”

((Mwaa haa. 3+5+3 stunt+Valour 3 channel+8 Malfeas ExD {arrogant, excessive displays of obvious force, wrathful glory, ostentatious, yeah this speech is basically Malfean as fuck}=22 dice. THE FUCK, DICE FAIRIES? 6 SUCCESSES? _SIX_ SUCCESSES? THE _FUCK?_ ))   
((Urgh. At least I beat Naan.))   
((so unfair~))

Keris feels it’s very unfair how from what she can hear of the audience, most people stopped listening a while ago. She feels... neglected. And a bit upset at the lack of a reaction. She thought it was a good speech!

Still, at least she wasn’t Clathe. She’s even lower in the order than Keris, and by the time she starts talking about her plans in the Haslanti League and how this is her first Althing... well, it doesn’t go down well. There’s some sniggery comments made by the audience when she starts stammering.

((... and she one-ups Keris with 3 successes on 18 dice.))   
((Hahahaha.))   
((Compassion 3; FAIL. Temperance 2; 2 sux.))

Keris is still fuming a little inside, and while she feels no real sympathy for the woman, she restrains herself to merely a faintly superior smile and a glance over to where Sasi is sitting, looking satisfied with herself and rather smug, at least to someone who can read her as well as Keris can.

It’s a relief for Keris when it’s over. She’s been sitting here for... gods, it seems like six hours at least. Her bottom’s gone numb. At least now there’s the afterparty with fine food from all over Hell and Creation and lots of drugs.

Keris puts her partying on hold for the moment, and listens for the sound of an avalanche held in check, tasting the air for the scent of aconite. Neither the sound of grinding stone nor the smell of poison tips Keris off to Berengiere’s location. In the end, it’s as simple as overhearing her name. She finds the demon; veiled as always, in conversation with a man Keris vaguely recognises by face if not by name. Lingering nearby, Keris helps herself to most of the contents of a buffet table before wandering over as the discussion seems to be meandering to a close.

The citizen inclines her head to Keris when she approaches. It feels... strange. But then again she is a peer - and a not-exactly-junior one at that. “Peer Keris Dulmeadohkt,” Berengiere says. “I am pleased to meet you.”

“Honoured Berengiere,” Keris returns, bowing. “The pleasure is mine.” They move through little formalities of small talk that Keris is fairly comfortable with - nice, safe questions that have almost-rote answers - before she moves to broach her reason for seeking the demon out.

“If you’re willing, I’d like to ask you for a commission,” she says. “A garment woven from my voice for one dear to me.”

Berengiere steeples her hands together, leaning forwards. “That lies within my talents,” she says. She reaches out and brushes Keris’ voicebox with the back of her hand. “I have not been able to work with one such as you yet,” she says almost dreamily.

Keris smiles. “Then I hope we’ll both be happy with the results,” she says. “When would be a good time to meet and discuss it further?”

Under her veil, she smiles. “I would be quite willing to take such a fine fabric as soon as possible,” she says, tilting her head.

Keris hears, very faintly, a high-pitched squealing sound in her head. For once, it is not Haneyl. Largely because Haneyl fell over and started hyperventilating during one of Ligier’s speeches. But no, this particular squeal is Echo’s, having just worked out who Keris is speaking to and why.

Her smile widens. “Well then,” she says, offering an arm. “Shall we go somewhere more private to talk?”

Of course there are private rooms here. There are many of them. The intention Keris has here is... not what most of the others are being used for. Well. Mostly it isn’t. Sadly, she is still vulnerable to poison. Like aconite. So she keeps her thoughts regarding Berengiere’s figure in her head as they proceed into a private room.

Once there, she explains the gist of what she’s looking for - ribbons and elbow-length gloves that won’t fray under the fingers of a being that shreds stone and flesh alike with her touch. Berengiere interjects with questions twice, regarding the size of the gift’s intended recipient, and Echo eagerly submits to a tape measure wielded by Dulmea.

And then the Weaver of Voices bids Keris sing.

She sings. Her fingers pull music from the air to back her voice, but it’s song, for once, that forms the mainstay of the melody. It’s one she remembers well, though it lay forgotten for years before being drawn up by Sasi along with the memories of her hometown. Keris closes her eyes in memory of the soft songs her mother used to murmur to her, opens her mouth, and lets the words pour out.

((3+5+2 stunt+3 dot Principle {I Love My Family (Echo)}+4 Kimmy ExSux {beauty, endlessly giving, kindness is real, martyring herself, great artist}=13. Uuuuuuuuurgh. 3+4=7 sux. Srsly, these dice fairies. So mean. Of course, that’s still shockingly beautiful by any mortal standard, but... rrrgh. 10s, y u avoid me?))

The Weaver of Voices traces her fingers through the air, as if gathering up unseen wisps - and then all of a sudden rests her hand on Keris’ mouth. Her voice cuts out. She can’t make a sound. Berengiere spreads her fingers and the air itself rests with a pale thread that seems taut against nothing.

Backwards and forth her fingers shuttle, hand-weaving this unseen garment - that starts to take shape. It is a fine set of lacy gloves and length after length after length of satiny ribbon which gleams with the light of Keris’ anima. Silver threads flash within the fabric and such is the skill of the Weaver of Voices that even the finger-width ribbons are a tapestry in their own right.

Keris tries to ask her how long this will take, but she can’t say a word. And she can just _feel_ Dulmea fuming inside her head - but not willing to say a word in front of Echo.

Keris sends determined happy feelings at her. She’s fairly knowledgeable in the lore of the Demon City, and she knows she’s heard of Exalted asking Berengiere to weave their voices into cloth before. It wasn’t permanent for them, so it shouldn’t be for her - she’s pretty sure that both of the accounts she’s read about had their voices return within a day or so.

It might have been a good idea to do this a bit later, of course, while there wasn’t a party going on. But oh well. Keris works her throat a few times and sinks a couple of root-tendril fingers into it. Strange. Her voicebox _tastes_ fine. But she can’t talk. She can breathe in and out normally, but whenever she tries to get so much as a syllable - or even a faint hum - out, the only result is a breath.

It feels very, very weird. Keris shivers at the odd sensation, and focuses back on the gorgeous work of art taking shape before her eyes.

((Um. You... did know the people who willingly give up their voices to her do so permanently?))   
((... I was under the impression that meant that people who, you know, willingly gave up their voices permanently had their voices taken permanently. Because they consented to have their voices taken permanently.))   
((Ah, I suppose that would also be a reading.))   
((Otherwise she’s... well, not _less_ useful, but her uses are a lot more amoral because you have to have her steal other people’s voices instead of donating your own for a scene or a day or however long it is.))   
((Hmm, yes, from your reading, it’s that she requires a permanent sacrifice to make artefact cloth.))   
((Yes. While Keris just wants lesser-magical-material stuff that can survive Echo.))   
((... of course, mechanically it’s a Crippling effect.))   
((So, you know, Exalt Charms might be able to cure the permanent version.))   
((Oh, huh. It’s just a scene for Exalts. Neat. So Keris should get it back at... sigh. The _end_ of the party.))   
((Keris, I can’t help but feel you did this in the wrong order.))

It takes time, but the Weaver of Voices finishes her artwork. Bowing to Keris, she offers the finished child-sized gloves and the lengths of ribbons.

Keris bows deeply to her and wordlessly applauds her skill. Without the ability to vocalise her appreciation, she instead offers a glowing smile that the demon seems to take as her due. Keris stays in the room as Berengiere leaves, and sits down cross-legged on the floor, winding the ribbon lengths into a coil. She folds the gloves around them and sinks into meditation, appearing in Dulmea’s tower once more.

No sooner has she appeared than she is hit by a ballistic, overjoyed, almost-hysterical Echo, babbling at high speed and crying with happiness. “For me they’re so pretty really for me for me me me?” Echo burbles.

Haneyl isn’t saying anything, but Keris gets the distinct feeling that she is... well, feeling like a four year old who’s just seen someone else get a present when there’s nothing for her.

Rathan, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to care and is busy chewing on... uh, what looks like an octopus.

Keris hands the ribbon and gloves over and kisses Echo on the forehead in the brief couple of seconds she has before the girl starts shedding her dress to replace it with a _better_ dress made out of _better ribbons_. Then she goes over to sit next to Haneyl, and carefully adjusts her crown.

“You know, I think you’ve grown a little bit,” she muses. “This isn’t quite as big on you as it was before.” She taps Haneyl on the nose. “You’re getting all big and princessy, aren’t you? But remember, you have your pretty robes and the crown, just like Echo has her ribbons and gloves now. And don’t think I won’t be getting you something when your first birthday comes around. Okay?”

Haneyl glares at Keris, with the full fury of someone who isn’t prepared to wait _literally longer than she’s been alive_ for a present. And then her lip starts to wobble. “But I wanna wanna wanna present now!” she wails.

((Also, so Keris is talking again?))   
((She’s currently meditating inside her head. She’s more thinking than talking at the moment. Ironically, if she was using Self Within Self Inversion to _physically_ be in her Domain, she’d still be mute.))   
((... the more OOC explanation is that I only realised I was having her talk about a second before you said it. ^_^’))

Luckily, Keris came prepared for this possibility. “A present like... a visit somewhere, maybe?” she offers innocently. “Maybe a visit somewhere... very pretty? With lots of green light? And beautiful things everywhere? A visit where we could spend the whole day there, looking at how pretty everything is? Without having to go away in a hurry because Sasi doesn’t like the light?”

The lip wobbling and the crying stops on demand. “Well, I _suppose_ ,” Haneyl says warily. “But! But but but! There has to be a real present too! One for me!”

“Wanna present!” Rathan contributes, octopus tentacles sticking out of his mouth.

“We’ll see,” Keris sighs. “First I need to wait until my voice comes back and find my way back to Sasi through this party.” She pauses. “And, uh. Also explain to Sasi why I can’t talk. Without talking. Hmm. I... I could probably have thought this out better.”

Haneyl crosses her arms sulkily. “You’ll probably just get _kissy_ with her again,” she says accusingly. “Rather than telling her about me, you’ll just kiss her and put your _tongue_ in her _mouth_ which is _disgusting_ and you don’t know she’s not going to bite it off.”

“...” says Keris. “I don’t think she could bite it off even if she wanted to, sweetie. Her teeth aren’t very sharp. And she doesn’t have as many of them as we do.” She glances over as Echo bursts back into the room, now clad in her new ribbon-dress and gloves. She pirouettes gracefully to show off her new attire, and then appears to decide that she likes spinning in circles and pirouettes around the rest of the room making “wheeee!” noises.

“... buuuuut I think that’s probably going to be an easier conversation that I’m going to get here, tongue-biting or not,” she finishes, and opens her eyes.

Now she just has to find Sasi and explain that she gave her voice to Berengiere for a little while to make Echo some pretty clothes. Without talking. That shouldn’t be too hard, right? Echo could mime it easily.

What could possibly go wrong?


	3. Chapter 3

Of course, Keris’ luck being what it is, the first person she runs into in the party downstairs is Naan. Well, it’s not so much “runs into” as “he bellows at her very loudly, from where he’s sprawled over living furniture with handsome young male demons covered in oil and not much else on his lap”.

“Oi! Keris! Get over here!”

Keris rolls her eyes and heads over, waving. She tests her voice experimentally and... nope, still no sound.

He is, by all reckoning, stinking drunk. The empty tumblers in front of him is enough of a clue, as is the mostly empty bowl of something which smells incredibly fruity and also strong enough to knock out most mortals. He offers a tumbler to Keris, and refills his own. “Haven’t seen you around,” he bellows conversationally. “How you doing?”

Keris takes the offered tumbler and sneaks a hair tendril around his shoulder to drain his while he’s focused on her. Grinning widely, she downs the glass and gives him a thumbs up.

“Good t’ hear it.” He throws back his drink, and rubs some new scarring done on his chest which flows onto his arms in an ornate pattern. When Keris looks at it, it glows a deep fiery red, like magma under his skin. “Pretty neat. Got it done few days ago. Reminds me of just how much firedust went boom. Killed a moon-witch, too.” He traces the broken moon symbol scarred on. “He screamed when he went up like a torch. Tore his cooked heart out and tossed it away. Just to show I was better - then killed his hungry ghost when it rose!” He bellows out his laugh, and throws back another drink. Only it’s empty.

He looks at the empty mug in vague confusion, and scoops out another one.

“Well I stole the knives right outta the hands of a moon-witch!” Keris fails to say. “And left him... to... oh, right.” She scowls. The words coming out of her mouth still, uh, aren’t.

“!!!” she emotes instead, trying to imitate Echo’s manner of speech. She points to herself rapidly and looks very smug, then spins Ascending Air out of the air and makes a show of plucking one of the blades out of her hand and looking surprised, before smirking wickedly.

It appears that Keris cannot communicate Echo-style, at least with drunk people. Naan just looks confused.

“Oh, look, another thing I’m better than you at,” Echo says cheekily in Keris’ head.

“Didya go all Adorjani and eat your own voice or something?” Naan asks. “... ‘cause you were talking at the showing off bit in the Althing.”

Keris looks offended and shakes her head, then stops, looks sheepish, and wiggles a hand in a “maybe” gesture. Lighting up as an idea strikes her, she forms a ribbon from her Amulet, waves it in demonstration, then spins around cheerfully and turns her whole outfit into ribbons.

Echo’s happy squeal sounds deeply impressed.

Naan looks suspiciously at his mug. “Is there somethin’ funny in this?” Keris nods firmly and swipes the rest of the bowl, then winks and spins away in a flurry of ribbons and hair.

It’s very loud here. Keris isn’t sure what to do. The noise is overwhelming. Fortunately, when she finds Sasi, she’s outside and that means there’s a little less noise - or at least the noise is mostly the background noise of Malfeas. Sasi is standing out on the veranda, talking to a woman who holds a shining bright green spear that shines with Ligier’s light.

“Ah, yes,” Sasi says as Keris approaches, “The situation in Chiaroscuro is stable at the moment, but with the satrap so firmly in the council of the Grand Daimyo of the Interior, if he falls so will she.”

“Sasi!” Keris chirps soundlessly, then spends several seconds silently swearing as she remembers _again_ that she can’t make noise at the moment. Talking is so reflexive that she keeps forgetting.

... also possibly she may have drunk a little bit too much of whatever was in that bowl she stole off Naan. Fruity drinky stuff, she decides to name it. Yes, that sounds perfect. It’s almost certainly what it’s actually called in real life.

Keris hops up onto the wall at the edge of the veranda and gives Sasi a somewhat wobbly toast with what’s left of the bowl, then eats it.

“Keris, dear,” Sasi says in a tone of voice that Keris knows to mean, ‘I am very annoyed indeed by how you are acting’ because it sounds a lot like Dulmea, “it is nice to see you. Have you met Gervesin, the Grieving Lord before? He is one of the souls of the Green Sun.”

Wilting a little at the sharp tone, Keris hops back off the wall and bows deeply to the citizen, eyeing... him? Her? She’d thought he was a woman at first glance, but Sasi said ‘he’, so...

... so it’s a thing that she can work out later, she decides. Sasi is probably right, though. Sasi is clever like that.

“Yes, Peer Keris Dulmeadohkt,” the woman says, a masculine reverb under her voice which seems to be coming from the spear. “I have heard some tales of your activities.”

Keris preens slightly. She opens her mouth to speak, remembers in time, and closes it again. A faintly sheepish look steals over her as she tries to remember how she’d planned to actually inform Sasi of her current state.

“Perhaps we can continue this conversation another time, Peer Sasimana,” the green-fire-spear man-but-a-woman says, glancing from Keris to Sasi and back with an assessing look. Sasi shoots Keris a mildly poisonous look, but bids him-her a pleasant goodbye and waits until she-he’s out of earshot before turning to Keris with a raised eyebrow.

“I was rather in the middle of a conversation there, dear,” she says with forced calm. “Do you need something urgently?”

Keris opens her mouth, pauses, closes her mouth again and spends a moment in deep thought. Inspiration strikes, and she holds up a triumphant finger. She points at herself, taps her throat, then puts a finger on her lips. Plucking a ribbon from her outfit, she twirls it briefly, then touches it to her throat and lips before blowing it away in a little puff of air.

Sasi raises an eyebrow.

Keris waves her hands to show she isn’t done, puts a finger to her lips again and then darts a few paces sideways and gestures to the spot she’s just vacated. Another ribbon appears in her hands, and she mimes passing it to something a little shorter than she is. Charade finished, she nods emphatically.

((Sasi! Roll for interpreting mime-speak! : P))   
((... or does Keris roll Expression?))

Sasi glares at Keris. “You did _what?_ ” she says. “You... you...”

Keris cocks her head, confused, then realises that Sasi must think she gave it away permanently. She waves her hands again, shakes her head frantically and thinks for a moment. Lighting up with inspiration again, she tilts her head back and screams soundlessly, then taps her throat and smiles.

Sasi inhales and exhales dramatically. “For goodness sake,” she mutters. “Did you think about this? At _all?_ ”

“No,” Dulmea replies immediately.

“Nope!” Echo sings, barely a second later.

Keris pouts at this treachery, but reluctantly yields to majority and shakes her head.

“Well,” Sasi says, “I just... it...” she trails away. “I think I need to get you out of here before you do something more... ill-advised that you won’t recover from. Tomorrow has not much scheduled - which is to say, it’ll be incredibly busy because the last day of Calibration will be mission reallocations and the like, so everyone will be politicking like crazy. And if you can’t speak for that... _well_.”

Fumbling around in her Domain, Keris comes up with a scrap paper and an ink brush. A few seconds work gets her a note that she holds up defensively.

‘Eko is happy,’ it reads; using the characters Echo used to sign her own name. The word “happy” is underlined three times. ‘She can touch things now without breaking them. And I can hug her properly.’

An expression flickers over Sasi’s face, but Keris doesn’t catch it before it’s gone. Standing on this balcony, staring out over the Demon Sea far below, Sasimana reaches out and gives Keris a hug.

Keris is completely lost as to why she does this. Nonetheless, she hugs back, cuddling into Sasi’s side. The older woman hasn’t been drinking as much as Keris has; but she can still smell a little bit of some of the very posh spirits that look almost like water and burn as they go down. It’s the sort of moment Keris would usually say something into, but writing another note doesn’t seem worth the effort, and the silence is a peaceful one.

“Come on, then,” Sasi says eventually. “Let’s get you home before you trade away something else to give to your other souls.”

Keris follows meekly, and tries to tune out the sounds of Haneyl’s approval for this suggestion.

“My place or yours?” Sasi asks innocently.

Perking up, the Scourge points at Sasi, eager to get another look at Sasi’s pretty estate. And, uh. Also to keep her away from the studio full of paintings of Rat, which she’s probably going to need to do something about at some point. Like locking the door, at least.

The palanquin ride back from the place where the party is occurring - well, it’s probably a good thing that the curtains were closed. But it’s not long enough, and it stops, allowing a rather mussed Sasi and a Keris who’s lost some ribbons to get out.

Sasi’s estate is somewhat more personalised than Keris’ - she’s been living in it for longer. Carefully raked gravel gardens intersperse desert shrubs and artfully done statuary. But what’s notable is the way that as they approach the main buildings, the light of Ligier dim overhead. The fires around Keris are burning black, consuming light and there’s a gloom here inside these tight winding corridors which - Keris sways. She’s either drunk, or the corridors are overlapping through space. They just went around in a circle and didn’t wind up back at their starting location.

Passing Sasi’s sombrely and formally dressed servants, they make their way past walls of Realm-style inkworks and into a vast inner hall with stairs leading up to many different doors. There’s strange crystal structures in here overhead, slotting together like machinery in the gloom.

Sasi raises a hand. “Just... just a moment,” she says, sitting with a funny look on her face and one hand on her abdomen. “She’s kicking hard.”

Keris pulls a chair over for her and helps her sit down, plopping herself into Sasi’s lap once she’s seated and rubbing her shoulders.

“You’re very lucky you didn’t have to go through a real pregnancy for yours,” Sasi says. She pulls a face. “And if I was still human, she’d be _out_ by now.”

Tilting her head, Keris hovers her hands just above Sasi’s swollen midsection and pulls them outwards, fingers spreading wide, with a quizzical look.

“What are you doing?” Sasi asks cautiously.

Keris appears to think for a while, holds up a finger, thinks some more, and blows out an annoyed puff of air. She mouths something rapid that Sasi doesn’t catch, mouths something else that Sasi catches enough of to get an impression of frustrated profanity, and goes back to nuzzling Sasi’s shoulders.

“You really didn’t think this through enough, child,” Dulmea comments. Keris responds with a sullen mental ‘shut up’.

Sasi seems to get what Keris means after a bit of thought, though. “Oh. She was conceived last Resplendent Air, near the start,” Sasi says. “So... four months to go. And if she’s like the others, she’ll be a big brute when she’s born. All of them were at least four kilos. So...” she sighs, “by the end, it’ll look like I’m trying to hide a watermelon in my clothes.”

The mental image makes Keris snort, but she frowns a moment later. “Testolagh?” she mouths slowly, looking up so Sasi can read her lips and pointing down.

“Yes, he... well, he wants to be involved,” she says. “We have an... arrangement. Neither of us can really drag a child around with us with what we do, so she’ll live on my estate, but he gets her when he’s here and I’m not.” She cuddles Keris. “You’ll probably be like an aunt to her,” she says fondly.

Keris cheers happily, and takes that as her cue to help Sasi the rest of the way to the bedroom so she can demonstrate why.

By the next morning, her voice has returned - perhaps a little fainter and less musical than normal, but audible. While they discover this from her delighted shriek during their morning wake-up session, she settles for more businesslike fare over breakfast.

“Have you made any more decisions about our, uh, sailing trip?” she asks. “The Red Moon seemed satisfied by your speech. Oh! It was a really good speech, too!” Keris pouts. “I thought mine was pretty good too, but nobody was listening by then.”

Sasi raises her eyebrows. She’s wrapped in a softer-than-velvet black dressing gown which seems to be made of liquid night. “I think you just misjudged your audience a little, dear,” she says. She pauses, and orders the staff out. “Now, as for that... myself, I think I’ve come to the decision that I am not _per se_ directly interested in the vessel - or, rather, I can see rather more use as something to offer to one of the Unquestionable than I myself can get out of it.”

Keris purses her lips, thinking.

“I think I could use it more directly,” she says. “But it’s not fully mine. Hmm. You found the ship; I found the shard. We could trade? As long as you promise to keep that thing far, far away from me.”

She grins. “And you know, if I still have it, then whenever you need a fancy cruise...”

Sasi smiles. “Well, we can talk about precise terms later, but that seems... workable,” she says. “I will of course want to fully categorise the contents of the vessel and the like, but if you think you can make use of the hull... hmm. Yes.” She seems to take care with what she says next, “Although, uh, Keris dear? What do you know about the operation and piloting of such vessels?”

Keris shrugs. “Mortals do it,” she points out. “So it can’t be that hard. And Rathan made some ship... sailor... demons.”

Sasi opens her mouth. Sasi closes her mouth. “Keris, dear,” she says firmly. “You _will_ learn to properly operate, maintain and sail it as part of any conditions where I pass my share over to you. This vessel is literally unique. That means you _must_ know how to use it if you are to keep it.”

Dulmea clears her throat. “And you could learn to navigate properly at the same time,” she adds.

“Now, as for the High Queen’s Crown...” Sasi continues meaningfully.

Keris automatically shifts into the straight-backed formal position Dulmea insists on. “Yes?” she says. Sasi gives Keris a very meaningful stare, and crosses her arms. “What about it?” Keris hazards. “It’s still safe! No harm at all!”

“I’m not concerned about its safety,” she says. “However, I can directly see use for the markers of the legitimate High Queen of An Teng.”

“Okay,” Keris nods. “So, uh. You want it? Now?”

“You know, one might think that there is a problem with that from the way that you’re acting,” Sasi observes.

Keris bites her lip. “Um...”

“Oh dear,” Sasi says, holding her head in her hands.

“Well, when I said it’s safe, it is still safe. Totally safe. And still in my soul,” Keris explains hastily. “It’s just not... exactly... technically in my hands anymore. Right now, I mean. Not ‘anymore’. But at the moment.”

“So your po has stolen it,” Sasi groans.

Keris blinks, and feels a brief surge of terror because _it would totally have done that, the bastard snake_. “Uh...” she stammers, “uh, no. No, not the snake. It was, um. Haneyl.”

Sasi stares at her.

“I gave it to Dulmea to guard!” Keris defends herself. “But she’s as sneaky as I am! She stole it from right out under Dulmea’s hair and then when I tried to get it back she burst into tears and set most of the swamp on fire and now she wears the robes like a cape and holds the crown with her hair because it’s too big for her head and orders her horses around like a princess.”

She pauses. “I think she’s making them joust to decide which ones to make into nobles,” she adds. “Or possibly just because she likes them fighting for her favour. Or both. And I did have a talk with her about how she’d have to give it back when you wanted it, I just... um... sort of hoped you never would? Because she’s probably going to start crying and set the swamp on fire again if I tell her to give it back.”

Another pause. “... do you need the robes too? Because she likes those as much as the crown, I think. Oh, the robes and the crown are both fireproof. In case you didn’t know that already.”

“What.” Sasi looks blank. “Just... what.”

“I gave the crown to Dulmea to keep safe...” Keris begins again, more slowly. Sasi waves her into silence and sits for a while, processing. Keris uses the opportunity to cock a mental ear to what Haneyl is doing at the moment.

Keris gets the very distinct feeling that her daughter is sitting there with her arms crossed and a pout on her lips.

... perhaps she has learned a little bit of mime-speak from her big sister. Sending a helpless mental shrug, Keris returns her attention to Sasi, whose head is now back in her hands. She’s becoming something of a veteran to speechless-with-absurdity-Sasi, and in her experience she usually comes in one of three flavours: hysterical laughter, angry ranting and “it’s too early in the morning I’m ignoring this”.

Given the time, Keris can probably rule out the third one. She waits with some apprehension to see which of the remaining two it will be.

“I... I... I can’t face this again,” Sasi says weakly. “Nelofa was bad enough when she went through that phase. And she was just an ordinary little girl when we had to stop her from trying to make the servants fight each other and hitting them with hairbrushes if they didn’t obey her.” She looks up at Keris. “ _Another_ one like that?”

“...” says Keris. “Um. Well, Echo is from the Silent Wind, and Rathan is all Kimbery, but Haneyl seems to be about equal parts City and Swamp. She likes her green fire. So... maybe? But you don’t have to face it again,” she points out. “Reason being, she’s in _my_ head, not yours. And hasn’t found a way out yet.”

Her eyes flicker upwards and half-close; staring at something far away and on the inside of her eyelids. “No, Haneyl, don’t... I don’t think... look, Firisutu doesn’t get out by charging through the cloud-wall; sending your horses to charge into it won’t help you find a way through.” A pause. “No, not even if they have fire. That’ll just get them eaten. No, it really will. Trust me. It tried to eat _me_ ; it will totally eat your horses.”

“You said she thinks and looks like she’s my daughter,” Sasi says in a still rather shocked sounding voice. “Because that sounds like Nelofa’s logic. Which doesn’t make sense because you don’t know anything about my other children. But that sounds so much like Nelofa.”

“She is your daughter,” Keris says, sounding slightly hurt. “Just... your sort of... soul-daughter. Not one you gave birth to.” She sighs. “She’s mine too, though. I don’t think any child of just you would have burnt down most of the swamp to keep the crown.” She winces, remembering several experiences that had led to a lot of ranting from Rat. “That’s... yeah, that’s me. That’s definitely from me.”

“Nelofa set fire to her brother’s bed one year because he got more presents than her,” Sasi says flatly.

Keris opens her mouth. Keris closes her mouth.

“... we should probably make sure they never meet,” she suggests.

“That’s my plan,” Sasi mutters below her breath, apparently forgetting that Keris can hear such things.

“I promise I won’t set fire to Rathan’s bed,” Haneyl says innocently.

“Well, duh,” Echo counters. “He sleeps underwater. So it won’t burn!”

“... shut up!” Haneyl sulks.

“So...” Keris says hastily, intending to get back on topic. Then she remembers what the topic was. “Uh... are we done, then?”

“No, we are not done,” Sasi says. “Keris. That’s... that’s the crown of the High Queen of An Teng.”

“Worth a shot,” Keris murmurs inaudibly. Louder, she tries a “yes?”

“It’s a vital tool for claiming legitimacy - and I happen to know that there’s a cult which preserves the bloodline of the High Queen which worships the Principle of Hierarchy. Which would, by Tengese law, be a true heir since they can trace the female-line descent to the last High Queen. The crown is more than just... just a toy!”

Keris looks very, very dubious. “Um,” she says. “Yeah, but... are you sure you want to give the crown to a cult that might get handed to Deveh instead of you? I mean, right now nobody knows we have it. But if they worship... Her, and you say we have the crown, and he says he should take it to work in Her interests...”

“Yes, but there’s spiting Deveh and then there’s the fact that this is something which could split An Teng apart if mishandled,” Sasi says softly. “Mishandled either way. And of course, dear one,” she nuzzles Keris in what Keris thinks may be a very underhand way, “what would the Unquestionable of the Principle do if they knew you had it?”

“...” says Keris. “Probably... not... ask nicely,” she admits.

“So here’s the standing issue,” Sasi says. “The crown is power - but the crown is also destabilising. So. Hmm. From my point of view, a new High Queen would be... inconvenient at the moment, but might be useful later on.”

“... so Haneyl can keep it for now?” Keris ventures. “Oh, something else I was going to ask you... uh. That can wait for a bit, I suppose.”

“What is it?” Sasi asks.

Keris tilts her head, purses her lips, and eventually shrugs. “Is there, uh, anything special about Calibration? Does it do anything special to demons, I mean. In general. Or any specific ones?

“Only Echo turned human.”

“... uh.”

“She’s not a little wind-girl anymore, I mean,” Keris elaborates. “I mean, she’s still a soul of mine. And she’s still just as deadly. But she looks like... an eight-year old girl. Her hair is black. Her teeth are, um, white jade. She can touch things. She can talk.” She pauses. “It’s actually hard to get her to stop talking. Dulmea says it’s like she’s trying to make up for a year of silence in five days. She changed on the first day of Calibration and spent two days teaching herself how to speak and then slipped a note under Dulmea’s door and...”

She shrugs. “So I was wondering if any other demons do this. Change at Calibration. I mean, I’m _guessing_ she’ll change back at the end of it and change again next year, but I... I don’t know. At all.”

She cocks her head. “She says hello, by the way. So does Haneyl. And Rathan says ‘no’.”

Sasi smiles at Keris. “Hello, Echo, Haneyl. Sorry you don’t want to talk to me, Rathan.” She frowns. “Well, demons have certain rules who don’t apply to them during Calibration. So... does that mean that Echo can assume different forms when fate does not apply?”

((Calming Down Sasi Style (Presence). 1-dot bonus: +1 when you can distract her with a new and interesting puzzle.))

“I don’t think Rathan doesn’t want to talk to you,” Keris assures her. “He just likes saying ‘no’. And... hmm. She couldn’t assume it when we first got to Malfeas, and Fate doesn’t apply here, does it? Or...” She chews a hair tendril. “Maybe I should try dipping a toe into a Wyld zone and see what happens there? I don’t think she did it intentionally. She seemed as surprised as I was.”

“You fell off a roof,” Echo points out, giggling. Despite her poutiness, Haneyl giggles too, and Rathan joins in despite not really understanding what his sisters are laughing at.

“Well, Calibration is when demons can most easily escape from Malfeas and the Surrender Oaths are at their weakest, so... what about that chains your Eko to be unable to take human form? And why?”

Keris falls into a meditative silence for a moment, and then shrugs. “That’s... sort of why I was asking you. You think it could be related to the Oaths?”

Sasi frowns. “Maybe,” she says. “We embrace the powers of the Creators, and so certain things of their nature become parts of ours. And your Eko was never human - she’s entirely demonic, so... possibly.” She frowns. “You went into the Underworld, didn’t you? Did she find she could assume human form there?”

“No,” Keris says confidently. “She was helping me clear out the shadowland, and she was still all red wind and ribbons then.” An eyeroll. “She and Haneyl sort of goaded me into doing that. Brats.”

“You’re a brat!” Haneyl accuses reflexively.

“I see. Well, we can maybe look into it later,” Sasi says. She frowns. “I may speak to the Lawgiver and Seresa, and see if there’s anything peculiar with them.”

“Seresa?” Keris raises an eyebrow. “She has a name?”

“She chose it, yes.”

“Heh. Maybe our souls can trade letters,” Keris suggests. “Haneyl and your Lawgiver might get along.”

Sasi looks vague for a moment. “They may be interested, although the Lawgiver has declared that it’s illegal for me to read her letters,” she says, after a while.

“You’re not allowed to read mine either!” Haneyl butts in before Keris can even formulate the thought. “And you have to deliver them quickly and not take ages to!”

Biting back a smile, Keris relays these instructions.

Sasi winces slightly.

“So, regarding the yacht,” Keris adds, turning the conversation away from memories of Sasi’s other daughter. “I could probably get it rebuilt? I’m sure Ligier could do it, from what I saw of his layer. I’m... less sure what it would cost me. But! If I had that... I could basically rule the seas around An Teng. Hah! Naan thinks he’s so clever being the pirate king of one island. I’d be able to just... to just _smash_ the Realm’s trading ships. I wouldn’t even need weapons mounted on it.”

“Would it mess up your plans if he, I dunno, wanted me to run missions for him or something?”

Sasi leans back, wrapping her soft dressing gown around her. “Most of my plans here don’t assume you’re present as a baseline,” she smiles at Keris, “just that you’re a blessing to me.” She cuddles her. “You’re so sweet and I don’t want to feel like I’m monopolising your time. And for your own sake, while you don’t want to be caught between too many Unquestionable, it might be useful to have another patron who isn’t the Shashalme who is... dangerous in a different way to Ligier.”

Keris nods, cuddling back. “I’ve started work on that gift for them; to repay their generosity.” She chews her lip thoughtfully. “I could really use a manse, honestly. Something designed as a workshop.” She shrugs. “Well. I’ll talk to Honoured Ligier and see what he’d want. I can tell him about the yacht? I’ll just describe it for now and say that we dredged it up, not whose it was. And of course you can inventory it before I show it to him.”

The other woman frowns at Keris. “Keris,” she says, “it was covered in Old Realm that would identify it. He will know.”

“... oh yeah,” Keris realises. “Okay. Fair point. Hmm. So I just don’t say we found the crown on it?”

“I’m not sure,” Sasi says thinly. “Not offending him is very important. Do you think you can lie to him if he asks directly?”

Keris bites her lip. “Um.” She thinks. It doesn’t take long. “No. I am good at dodging questions, though,” she points out. “I kept the ambassador from you.”

((o keris. Part of her is very proud about that, in a slightly guilty sort of way.))

“Hmm. Well, before you take it anywhere, I get to look through. You just get the hull from that deal,” Sasi says quickly. “The other things in there aren’t included.”

Keris hums agreement. “Do you want to go through it today? If we can find a place to take it out, I mean.”

“Not today, I’m afraid,” Sasi says. “I have Unquestionable to talk to before the last day of Calibration. I have to stop Deveh from trying to take control of the South West chair.” She frowns. “Neither of us want that. And it’s probably going to take days, at least, so you shouldn’t talk to Ligier until after Calibration’s over.” She pauses. “Which is for the best. Let most of the other princes go, so no one gets suspicious about what you’re doing with him.”

“Right.” Keris grins. “In that case, heh. I think I’ll take Echo running again. Maybe to the edge of the Swamp, and let Haneyl taste a few things there.”

“That might be a good idea if it will keep you away from making deals with demons,” Sasi murmurs, a quiet smile on her lips.

Keris heads out - in her armour once again - as Sasi leaves for the Althing again. Echo soon trails behind her; a wind-afterimage in the real world, but one whose dress of wind-ribbons catches the light of the Green Sun and refracts it in Kerisian anima-light as she laughs gleefully and babbles to her mother.

“That way! Now that way! Up there! Higher, higher! Now jump off the top and run along there! Wheeee!”

((Does Keris want to apply for a change to her Urge? Or do you want them to reassign her Urge to something Keris might not consider as easy as “sink ships, yo” as drama or from Infernal politics? You can assume that unless you want it to happen as a plot thing, Sasi will keep chairing the South West and Keris won’t be transferred elsewhere.))   
((Yeah, keep her Urge the same, since it handily supports the Pirate Queen Keris that I am, honestly, leaning towards.))

It’s a good, invigorating run; one that winds past the edge of the Swamp (with a brief pause to plunge finger-roots into a tree before running away when it opens a pair of mismatched eyes), briefly into the Silver Forest and across the Demon Sea for a while before curving back to the Althing. Echo is overjoyed.

The tomescu are screaming the sunset as Keris reaches home; stopping in briefly to check with Sasi how the day went.

A little slug of flesh tried to worm its way into Keris when she touched the tree in the edge of the Swamp, but Haneyl tore it apart with teeth in Keris fingers almost before Keris even noticed it.

“Tasty!” Haneyl says happily. Keris merely shudders, and resolves not to go quite so close to the Swamp in future.

Eventually, though, all things must end. Even Calibration. Keris makes sure to be meditating when the last scream of the tomescu approaches; with her whole family present.

She cuddles Echo close, planting a fond kiss on her forehead. “You keep those gloves on,” she reminds her. “Okay? And your new dress, so I can still hug you. And I’ll still look forward to next year.”

Echo bounces up and down, but her lips are wobbling and there’s tears in her big eyes. “Yeah,” she says, taking several big gasping breaths. “We... we had so much super-mega fun and... and it was totally unfair that this didn’t happen last year and... and... and...” she snivels, her nose running.

“It was the bestest best five days ever,” Keris whispers, holding her close. Naturally, Haneyl considers any amount of attention being not given to her to be cheating her of her rightful dues, and Rathan is of a similar opinion, so they squirm into the hug. Which means the whole thing is just a mess of long hair and hugging.

“Mama,” Echo begins. “I love y-”

Outside the tiny world within Keris’s soul; five days away across the Endless Desert, far to the east of the Imperial Mountain, light blooms on the horizon. For the first time in five days of darkness, the sun begins to rise.

And Echo’s eyes close. She lets out a breath that’s half-sigh, half-sob. And sublimates into wind; her skin unweaving into ribbons; her black hair bleeding into red gusts.

Keris wavers for a moment, until the change has finished, and then carefully takes her daughter’s glove-clad hand. The fabric is cool to the touch. But not painful.

“I love you too, sweetie,” she says. “I love you too.”

Echo pouts, crossing her arms. She pulls a rude face at time for being very rude for interrupting her. She was trying to tell Mama that she loved her, she tells Keris with a hug. Ever eager for affection, Rathan starts climbing Keris as a ladder, hanging onto her.

Keris hugs her back, pulling Haneyl and Rathan in as well. “Yeah,” she smiles. “I know.”

With Calibration over, Keris is able to get back to work on her project for the Shashalme. And it seems as though the break has done her good! Her planning progresses in leaps and bounds, and by the end of the week she’s finished planning and begun to actually construct the thing. The bowl is going to be the mainstay of the control, and she puts her gorgeous tools to work; using the black jade engraver to painstakingly carve out the Essence mudras that will manipulate the chalcanth-infused soil onto the silver inner lining of the white jade.

Sasi has begun to subtly pester Keris into looking through the ship, and by the end of the week, Keris is more or less at a point where she can leave her project to sit for a while, so she allows Sasi to drag her off somewhere they’re fairly assured of privacy.

On a rather deserted, lonely coast between Cecelyne and Kimbery, Sasi traces a wide circle of crushed glass and flares her anima to the fullest. In ringing tones, she seals the ring such that no eyes can breach it; the eagle-headed dragon coiling protectively around the pair of them and veiling them from sight before fading.

After prodding Keris to snap her out of the slight daze that always results after seeing Saso practice Sorcery, Keris gets on with her own work. Shedding her blood onto the sand and invoking Kimbery’s power is... it’s easy. It’s really easy, in fact. The waves rush up to greet her; sinking a large chunk of the beach under them and forming a small, private harbour.

Then Keris gets started on the main part of the ritual; Sasi watching every movement. As Keris circles and chants; shedding blood and laying flowers, Sasi takes notes, and Keris is fairly sure she sees her lover’s anima flare again as the fog spills out from the cloud wall and the ship begins to emerge.

It takes four hours. By the end of it, the yacht is floating once more outside Keris’s soul, with its new mistress slumped on the front deck, panting.

Sasi steps onboard the ship. carefully paying attention to each detail. She takes a look down at the waterline. “I hope the Ocean doesn’t seep in and corrode the hull,” she says, bringing her anima up to illuminate the inside. “Well. We begin by categorising the layout and the areas of interest. Then you can dispose of the bodies, once we know where they are and have attempted to identify them. Then we can start removing the objects of value.”

Keris lifts a hair tendril and waggles it. “ya’,” she manages, weakly. “‘kay.” After a moment more of lying there, she heaves herself upright. “Uh... right. Oh, mmm. Yeah yeah, quit shouting.” She fumbles for a moment in her hair, and pulls out a large, porcelain-white leaf neatly folded into three. It’s suspiciously oblong for a leaf, and a vivid green flower has been tucked into it. “Haneyl wrote this last night. S’for the Lawgiver, I think. And...” more fumbling, and another folded leaf. This one has three flowers. “This one’s f’you.”

((In Haneyl-land, books _do_ grow on trees.))   
((Literally.))   
((With words and everything. Mostly about how great Haneyl is.))

Sasi takes the note meant for the Lawgiver, and seems about to open it before she stops. “Fine,” she says, passing it into her shadow before she takes the other note meant for her with invisible hands and carries it around in front of her, reading it. It turns out to be a very polite and respectful and formal note written in very pretty handwriting, in which Haneyl introduces herself to her Respected Mother and tells her a lot of the things she’s been doing with her forest and horsies and also what she’s learning at the moment. Any suggestion that she might be trying a little bit too hard to make a good impression would of course be ridiculous.

“Thank you, Haneyl,” Sasi says to Keris. “I’ll keep it in a special place,” she says, passing it into her shadow. “And write a response for you. Would you like some books meant for Dynastic children your age?”

Keris actually winces at the volume of Haneyl’s response. “That’d be a yes,” she mutters, rubbing her ears ruefully. “Definitely a yes. A very enthusiastic yes.”

“Well, I shall see what I can do. No doubt Orabilis may have some copies of the relevant books,” Sasi says. “Hmm.” She gets distracted by trying to make some kind of strange crystal cube lying on the ground work. “I think it’s... it’s an information storage device,” she says. “Possibly some kind of moving-image record. But it’s not working. I think they’re meant to play-back what was recorded in them when you press them in the right way, but it’s not doing anything. Maybe it’s depleted its essence batteries.”

“Where’s the control room?”

Sasi goes vague. She blinks heavily. “I... I think this kind of vessel should have two bridges,” she says groggily. “One primary one, in the pagoda, and a reserve one within the vessel.”

“I’ll see if I can find them,” promises Keris, who had been getting a little bored of walking around mapping the ship. “You keep looking around.”

((Hmm. Probably won't be able to have Ligier-convo and finish downtime-crafting this session. Where's a good cut-off point?))   
((Just getting there, trust me))   
((... oh fuck.))

“Oh!” Sasi says brightly. “Look!” She picks up a small thumbnail-sized thing on a bright chain. “Look familiar?”

It does in fact look familiar. It’s a less elaborate version of Keris’ own resplendence amulet, but it’s obviously similar. It even has the same Old Realm sigil on the front.

“Another Amulet!” Keris grins. “That’ll be handy for you.”

“Let’s give it a try,” Sasi says, looping it over her neck. She sits for a while, focusing on it, and then stands and passes most of her clothing into her shadow, before what seems to be a wave of moonsilver flows out of it and envelops her. It solidifies as clothes almost identical to the ones she’d had before. “It doesn’t seem to do the beautiful glowing thing,” she says sadly.

Keris smiles happily and cuddles her own Amulet. “Mine,” she purrs gleefully, clothing herself in a shining coat of mail; every scale a perfectly carved pearl whose milky depths hold a seed of fire.

Sasi is entirely unaffected by the change. Keris pouts.

With a shrug, Sasi shifts her clothes so she’s wearing a gown made of liquid shadow which pools around her. “Well, I think we can move onto the pagoda,” she says.

The pagoda is a small tower rising from the top of the ship. There’s no stairs to it, and Sasi says that it’s probably because in the day, air essence just carried people up here. Either way, Keris runs up the shaft and then lifts Sasi up after her. There’s a double-layered room at the top of the tower, even if if’s quite broad and seems to be a viewing gallery as well as the bridge.

“Well,” Sasi says, considering. “One answer found.”

Because there was obviously violence here. The crystal machinery has been smashed and burned by raw essence, and there are obviously butchered bodies here, stripped of their arms and armaments, piled up where they died.

“... this does not look like it will make my ship go forwards,” Keris concludes sadly.

“Yes. So I think we have to assume there was a coup in here, and forces loyal to the Grand Rebellion won out - and wrecked the bridge and submersed the ship to leave the people down here to die. And look at how the bodies don’t have the weapons we’d expect to see. They must have taken all the things that could be used. Which we should have expected, given the armoury was also stripped. So. Backup, then,” Sasi says.

They find that in the middle of the ship, down low. The door has been sealed shut by what looks like essence blasts, welding it shut.

Sasi sighs. “Keris,” she says. “Try to open this door. I’ll look for other ways in.”

Not wanting to hurt her pretty new ship any more than is necessary, Keris starts by bodyslamming the door.

... it doesn’t work quite as planned.

Once she’s picked herself up off the floor and considered somewhat, her next _rational_ step is to try and slice through the welded sections and hinges with Ascending Air.

Keris manages to use a mix of Ascending Air and her spear to cut through the worst-fused parts, work a blade into the cracks and lever the door off the broken hinges, and then cut around the rest of the door. It’s a bit messy, but the door and the wall are each mostly in one piece and... uh, she now has a door. She manhandles it to prop it against the wall.

There’s no bodies in here, and no signs of a fight.

“Sasi!” she calls, already poking around. “I’m in!”

Sasi comes sweeping around in her shadow gown. She hasn’t changed out of it. “Oh, very nicely done,” she compliments Keris. “There’s a _lot_ of the picture-viewer cubes elsewhere in the ship. I think maybe everyone owned at least one, and there’s larger ones, too. One still had power. It seemed to be some kind of recording of a fight, but... not a real one. Maybe like a tournament, or some kind of play. It cut out though. I think I used the last scraps of power in it.”

“Did you get a handle on what type of power they need?” Keris asks. “Can we make them work again if we want to? I can see some uses for a few of them.”

Sasi purses her lips. “I think they’re using earth-aspected essence, to store and record the knowledge,” she says carefully. “Possibly some air in it, to recount the sound and light?” She takes a breath. “Well, the secondary bridge - they seem to have sealed it off so no one could get in, right at the start of the coup,” she says smugly. “So it should still work. So. Time to work out how to use it.”

There’s an orichalcum-inlaid chair in the middle of the room. Sasi sits down on it, making herself comfortable. She rests her hands on the crystals on the arms, and strokes them. Musical notes come from the crystals.

Keris watches, and after suppressing her initial “argh, hard clever stuff” reaction, gets rather absorbed in following the notes that each crystal produces and the sounds from the ship that they induce. It’s... it’s like a duet, she thinks. Sasi is the lead, but the ship can’t freestyle or improvise very well, so she has to stick to the right songs.

It doesn’t seem to be working, though. “I don’t know the song,” Sasi says darkly. “I don’t know the right tune to make it let me in.” She pouts, in a very Haneylian way.

“Can I try?” Keris asks. “I mean, I won’t break it if I get it wrong; it just won’t let me in, right?”

“Go ahead,” Sasi says, getting out. “I... I’m just trying to think about who might have the codes for this vessel - or maybe some of the override codes that a member of the Deliberative might have. They won’t have any of those on board, though. Where would they store the song? Who’d know it?”

“Well,” Keris mumbles, her attention only half focused on Sasi, “it was made for the High Queen. So I’m betting the start-up codes would be...”

Her hair fountains up around her as she takes the seat, splaying her fingers over the crystals. It strokes the air, drawing music from the ship’s history; from the strands of Time that lie thick and heavy in the room; low and lazy after thousands of years spent in silence. Even as the harp sounds fill the room, Keris is humming another melody entirely - a set of melodies; the oldest Tengese tunes she knows from her time in An Teng; piecing together the common chords and bars that pin them together, feeding them into the echo she hears from the ship and distilling the result down further.

“... Tengese,” she finishes absently, and cautiously lets her fingers move.

A few notes at the start seem to click, but too much is just lost to thousands of years.

Sasi narrows her eyes. “I know how to get the Deliberative override codes,” she says suddenly, taking the seat. “That should give us access to this vessel. Remember the music, dear one. I don’t want to have to do this twice.”

Keris nods uncertainly and stands back.  She watches as her lover takes a deep breath, and begins to meditate. Her features take on an expression of almost preternatural calm. Delicately, gently she traces the crystal orbs, beginning a... a surprisingly jolly little song which lilts and wobbles as she eases it out of the humming crystal. The vessel lights up, the sunburn-feeling of the Solar essence within getting stronger, and Keris hears the hum of ancient machinery as it comes to life for the first time since the vessel was forgotten about.

“Deliberative authorisation input,” says a bland female voice from the machinery. “Override access enabled. Welcome, exalted one.”

“Hah!” cheers Keris. “Go Sasi! And... yeah, I think I have the tune.” She grins. “Wanna celebrate?”

Sasi lifts her hands off the crystal orbs. They’re shaking. She stares at her hands with wide, wobbling eyes. “So... so pale,” she says in Old Realm. “Is... is there something wrong with the lighting here? I... I feel sick. And everything is... too bright.”

Keris blinks. “Um,” she says in confusion. This doesn’t seem to be enough, so she follows it up with another “um”, and then a “are you... feeling okay, Sasi?” in Old Realm.

“Sasi?” Sasi asks, eyes narrowing. She scoops back her sleeves, and examines her forearms in the same shuddering, trembling way.

Several pieces fit together in Keris’s head into a very, very uncomfortable shape. One of the pieces is Yamal. Another is her first trip into the Tomb of Singing Blades.

“... out of interest,” she says carefully, moving between possibly-Sasi and the door and hoping _really hard_ that the woman she is speaking to doesn’t know how to turn into the light-hating shadow.

On the plus side, if she does, it’ll probably hurt. A lot. And then she’ll turn back, and Keris can easily keep her from leaving the ship and doing something... unwise.

“... out of interest,” she continues, “do you, um. Know who I am? At all?”

Two eyes meet Keris’. “I do,” she says, sounding scared. “You’re... you’re Keris. But I don’t know how I know this.” She smiles broadly at Keris, despite her fear. “I... I think I should trust you. Except...” she lets out a hiss. “You feel like an _akuma_.” She brings up one arm, and her black robe turns to silver moonsilver again. Mirror-shining moonsilver. And she lets out a hiss of breath...

... which turns into a wail. “I... I can feel _Her_ power inside me,” Sasi wails, pulling herself out of the chair and falling into a martial arts postion that isn’t anything like the fighting styles Sasi uses. “That damnable power. The Hierarchy! I... I can feel everything. Everything around me. And... you’re an akuma! Something of... of Adorjan, Metagaos and Kimbery. And... and I can feel the Demon City!” Her voice grows more and more hysterical, rising in pitch. There’s a light of madness in her eyes, too.

“What have you _done_ to me?” she screams.

Keris swears and lunges forward, waving wildly. “Wait wait wait wait wait! I haven’t done anything to you!” She hesitates, realising that a) this is not true and b) past-Sasi can almost certainly sense lies. But that can work for Keris as well as against her. “Okay, no, not true, I’ve done a lot of things to... to the woman you share that body with. But nothing related to the Yozis. More, um, bedroom things. And I won’t hurt you, I promise. We’re in the middle of the strongest ship I’ve ever seen; you’re safe, I swear. Just... just calm down. Please.”

And please don’t think too hard about the baby you’re carrying, she prays silently, because I’m not sure if I could move fast enough to stop you hurting her if you went crazy and tried to.

((Per + Pres, better hope you roll well~))   
((3+5+2 stunt+4 autosux {Sasi TLA Principle channel}+4 Kimmy ExSux {charm, endlessly giving, hides ugliness}=10. 3+4+4=11 sux.))

Not-Sasi seems to hold back her hysteria. Barely. Keris has only just delayed the explosion - but she has delayed it. “Answers,” she snaps in the tone of someone who’s about one wrong word from extreme violence. She’s shaking like a leaf, but it’s the kind of shaking a madman might do, like the people Keris ran from who lurked around Firewander. “Answers. Give me answers now.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Okay,” says Keris; upbeat and agreeable and maybe just a tiny bit frantic. “Answers.”

Inside her head, Dulmea’s music is tense and rapid. Her heart is humming faster than it has since the horrible, nightmarish battle with Rosseah’s yidak. The woman in front of her is not Sasi, she reminds herself - and keeps reminding herself in a constant mantra; _not Sasi, not Sasi, notSasinotSasinotSasi_. She might look like Sasi and even sound like Sasi, but she’s not. Her stance is different. Her intonation is different. Her expression is completely different. This is a Solar Exalt - only the second that Keris has encountered - and it’s one who lived in an age built by seven hundred shining monsters. One who called that bright and terrible era ‘home’.

She’s not feeling especially threatened herself. Whoever this woman is, however dangerous she might have once been; she’s currently in Sasi’s body. And frankly, Keris could take Sasi without breaking a sweat, especially unarmed as she is. No, what Keris is worried about is Sasi’s baby. Because this woman _isn’t Sasi_ , and she was freaking out about the power of Yozis in both herself and Keris. If she pays enough attention to the infant in her womb to realise how special she is, there’s no telling how she might react. And Sasi can’t lose another child. She just can’t.

Keris _will not let it happen_.

The best way to prevent it is to keep this woman distracted. So Keris pastes on her best smile and leans forward with the open, honest gaze Rat taught her; her palms open and empty, her body language friendly. “What, uh, what answers do you want me to start with?” she asks. “And, um. Not to sound like I’m refusing to give them, because I’ll answer any questions you like, but I might be able to answer more if I knew who you, uh, were. At all. I’m Keris. But you, um, already knew that.” She essays a tiny, nervous wave. “Hello.”

She looks at Keris, and then suddenly smiles. There’s something about that which... Keris gets the feeling that the woman is smarter than her, maybe even as smart as - or smarter than - Sasi, but not quite as quick thinking. Of course, the fact that she’s freaked out might have something about it. Or the fact that from some of her microtells, Keris confuses her. Like she implied before, there’s something of Sasi hiding underneath.

“My name is Anilasa,” she says, lips quivering despite her smile. “I... I don’t know what’s going on. I... I remember... I’m not sure what I remember. It’s all a patchwork. But I’m sure that... that the Deliberative will vouch for me, if... if you would just escort me to the Embassy, thank you very much.”

((Per + Pres + Overseen Mouse Style 3 + Style Bonus = 9 successes to try to persuade Keris that she’s no threat and the best thing would be to help her to the Embassy, whatever that is.))

Keris chews her lip nervously. In fact, she’s nervous enough that several locks of her hair follow suit and start chewing on each other.

This is not going to be fun to explain.

“That would, uh. Be the Deliberative’s Embassy in Malfeas, yeah?” she asks, already dreading the answer. “The Solar one?”

“Yes,” the woman says, eyes flicking from side to side. She seems to be trying to work something out. “I can hear the Demon City around me.”

“Believe me, you really can’t,” Keris mutters sullenly. “Try it with these ears and then you can say that.” She shakes her head and clears her throat. “Sorry. Okay. Um.” More lip chewing. “Anilasa. You’re right, you’re in Hell. We’re in a Fi- in a Deliberative yacht on the coast of Kimbery. We’re safe here; reasons being that first, nobody knows we’re here ‘cause this trip was private and second, Sasi put a ward against scrying around us.”

She takes a breath. And then another. In fact, just breathing air in and out for a while seems a much more attractive prospect than explaining the next bit.

“She is getting impatient, child,” Dulmea warns. Keris winces. Fine. Fine, okay. Time to face it like an Exalt.

“... and this is probably the safest place for you right now,” she says slowly. “For... reasons that you’re really not going to like. Can you... can you try really hard not to... get too upset, when I tell you them?” She gives the woman a pleading look, and straightens up.

“Okay. Basically, um.” Keris shuffles awkwardly, and decides to go for broke. The words come out in a rush. “You know how Exaltations pass on to new hosts when the last one died? And how they carry memories on them? That’s... um. That’s what you are. You... you died. A long time ago. A long, long time ago. The Dragonblooded betrayed you, and your Exaltations passed on, and now you sort of... sleep, and sometimes wake and take over. That’s why you look different now. That’s why I called you Sasi; she’s... who you’re sleeping in. It’s happened to me, too. I was Yamal - Yamal Icewind. He woke up in me in Nexus, and I don’t remember anything he did there, because I was asleep while he was awake just like he is when I am.”

She hangs her head, because talking to her knees is better than watching the slowly crumbling expression on her lover’s face right now. “I can’t take you to the Embassy because there isn’t an Embassy anymore. There isn’t a Deliberative anymore. It...” she gulps air, “it ended... I think it’s been almost two thousand years since it fell.”

“I’m sorry.”

((Per + Pres, 3 dice stunt, trying to get her to take it a good way.))   
((Oh, FDA. Truth. Truth. Truth. Horrible, awful truth. Not even any half-truths. Just nightmarish sincerity.   
3+5+3 stunt+3 Compassion channel+4 Adorjani ExSux {crucible of tragedy, let go of attachments, inevitability that bad things happen, inspire heroes... this is a very Adorjani social attack, Keris; the Silent Wind approves}=... hmm. Now, does that Compassion count for the TLA effect or not? Hmm. I’m gonna say no; Keris is treating them as different people.   
=14, then. 8+4=12 sux.))

Anilasa... crumples. She sags down, barely even trying to soften her fall. “No,” she whispers. “No. I... can feel _Her_ in me. Her whispers in... in my _soul_. And it’s true. Or... you believe it to be true. You... you’ve been lied to. You... you have to be. No. You... they’ve... you’ve...”

Keris gives in to the urge to hug her. “I am sorry. I really am,” she says, catching the woman before she hits the floor too hard. “I’d prove it, but, uh. The only way I can think of to do that is to take you to one of the Unquestionable or one of their souls who can confirm it. And, uh. No. Worlds of no.” She bites her lip. “I am telling the truth, though. It’s the seven hundred and sixty somethingth year of the Realm, and before that was the Shogunate, which lasted...”

She pauses. “Uh... twelve... hundred years? I think? I’ll be honest, I didn’t pay much attention to that bit of history. Or history in general.”

Her Old Realm is... strange. Keris doesn’t recognise the accent, but it somehow sounds familiar. Great heaving sobs rack her body, but her eyes are dry.

Because, of course, as Sasi has told Keris before: she can’t cry.

Keris holds her close and makes soothing noises. On the one hand, she really hates the sound of Sasi crying. Or not-crying. On the other hand, she thinks guiltily, this _does_ seem to have distracted the woman from asking about the powers of the Yozis, which seems like the kind of thing that would have been a lot more awkward to explain.

Keris’ job is not any easier by Haneyl’s obvious and truly frightened distress inside Keris’ head. She’s not wailing as she wailed when someone tried to “steal” her crown and robes. No, she’s making noises which are painfully reminiscent to Keris - the chest-hurting sobs she cried for Rat when he vanished and the bitter tears of loneliness she remembers from when she was little and starving and lost.

Calming hysterical loved ones on two fronts taxes Keris’s already-strained command of language, and her soothing nonsense-words and murmurs slip into a hum when she runs out of platitudes. The hitching breath under her hands sends alarm spiking through her for a moment until she realises that Anilasa has turned her head to listen.

So she lets the music flow. There’s so much _pain_ in the air, so much grief and loss and heartbreak that once she _starts_ pulling chords out of the strands of Time, they flow with such strength that she’s not sure she could stop them. She tries her best to gentle them; to turn it from a melody of raw pain to one of sadness expressed and hurt met by healing. Haneyl joins in shakily, and Keris reassures her once again that Sasi isn’t _gone_ gone, just sleeping for the moment.

Haneyl falls away, aided by hugs from Dulmea, allowing Keris to focus entirely on the strange woman in Sasi’s flesh. The Solar essence all around her gets in Keris’ eyes and ears and mouth. It itches. But she still just focuses on Sasi.

It’s... not helping much. “H-how did I die?” stammers the woman.

“Um.” Keris shrugs. “I think... the Dragonblooded rebelled against the Deliberative, like I said,” she says. “I... think they attacked at Calibration? A feast or a... ritual, or something like that. That got most of... of you, but I guess either some escaped or they weren’t all there at the time, because there are some tombs in Nexus where they fell. Yamal’s is there. That’s where he awoke in me. How you died personally... I don’t know. Sorry.”

She takes a big shuddering shaky breath. “And... what are you? What am I?”

Keris longingly considers deliberately misunderstanding the question, which is a tactic that’s served her rather well more than once with Sasi.

((... Valour 3. 1 sux. Keris is not cowardly enough to dodge the question. Barely.))

“... I’m an Exalt,” she says carefully. From what the woman - Anilasa - was freaking out over, she really doesn’t like the Whispering Pyre. _Really_ doesn’t like her. Or any of the other Yozis, Keris is willing to bet. So, careful mostly-truths are the order of the day.

“My third soul belonged to a Solar once,” she continues. “Yamal Icewind. It’s... changed, since then? It - they, all of them - they weren’t around for a long time. At least, I never heard of any when I was growing up, I think... most of them must have been... stuck somewhere. Somehow. Um... only then they got loose again, I suppose. And some of them have changed.”

She pauses. She’d _thought_ that they’d changed _back_ to what they were like before, when the All-Makers were in charge properly, but she’s still a bit shaky on that theory, and it doesn’t seem like it would go down well here. “I... don’t think anyone ever actually explained to me how? But I can sort of... learn the powers of the All- of the Yozis. Like the Great Mother’s affinity for water. And I’ve budded souls... I think I’m something a bit like a baby Unquestionable? Only not a part of any Yozi.”

Blowing out a sigh, Keris scowls. “Honestly, you’d be better off talking to Sasi about this stuff. She’s the clever one who does the thinking and the planning and the knowing stuff. I’m...” Another sigh. “I’m not. Clever. About that sort of thing.”

The woman stares at Keris, lips wobbling. There’s an expression of disgust on her lips that’s at least as much self-directed as aimed at Keris. “I r-remember Yamal,” she says in a little voice. “He was... very young. Barely in his second century.”

“...” says Keris.

After a moment, she tries again. “Second... century,” she repeats, just to check whether there’s some other Old Realm sentence that sounds exactly the same but means something entirely different. “ _Very young_.”

The words line up properly. There aren’t any grammatical errors in them. They just don’t make any sense. “ _Barely_ in his...” she adds faintly, and trails off.

Despite her distress, not-Sasi laughs. It seems genuine too - like the laugh of an old woman who’s amused by someone underestimating her age. “I was w-well in my second millennium,” she says. “I should have had another three thousand years or more. Enough to finally coax the Deliberative into doing the proper thing. Though I would probably have gone entirely grey by that point, from stress alone. I was already going white - though that was from too much essence channelling.” She pulls a lock of Sasi’s hair in front of her eyes. “She seems to have gotten it out of the way early.”

“No, she’s just like that,” Keris says numbly. “Haneyl’s the same way. It’s a Realm thing, I think.” She frowns. Two... two _millennia_. That’s... heck, that’s as long as it’s been since the Deliberative _fell_. The whole of the Shogunate _and_ the whole of the Realm - this woman was older than both put together.

She was one of the monsters. One of... one of the old ones. Sasi had said, but Keris had forgotten because... well, she doesn’t _seem_ monstrous. She seems like... well, like a woman who’s lost everything. But not some ancient terrible _thing_.

Two thousand years. There weren’t that many old ones; not that old. Yamal knew them all. Keris squints, trying to remember which one was called Anilasa, and what she was like.  She can’t bring the details to mind, though. Yamal’s memories are hard to recall - it’s like trying to remember something she only saw once years ago.

“The Realm was the name of the unified Creation we ruled. So Creation is ruled once more,” the woman says thoughtfully. “Who? By... your masters?”

Keris’s scowl returns with interest and a few friends. Her teeth seem a good deal sharper as she growls a curse word low in her throat. “No,” she spits. “No, the ones in charge are the _Dragonblooded_. The Realm rose right after the Twin Cataclysms. The Scarlet Empress on top, the Great Houses and a bunch of...” she snarls a word in Rivertongue that earns her a sharp chord of disapproval from Dulmea, “stomping all over the Threshold.”

“Mama angy!” Rathan puts in helpfully. “Mama angy at ship fire lady!”

Anilasa slumps down, massaging her temples. “Still with the _fucking hierarchies_ ,” she mutters. “Two thousand years and nothing is better. Worse, maybe.” She takes a breath. “I made things better in my territories,” she almost pleads to Keris. “As much education for anyone as they wanted. I set things up so people would wind up in jobs they would naturally enjoy and which were well-suited for them. I ran my territories for the people, not for me. People could decide what they wanted. I tried to purge as many hierarchies as possible, so that... that _poison_ of the Principle would be cut out from the world and people could live in a better way. I was better than that. I _helped_ people become better and shed the old lies.”

((Per + Pres + Shining Orator Style 3 = 7 successes))

Keris smiles tentatively. “I’d’ve liked to have grown up somewhere like that,” she says wistfully. “I mean, not just ‘cause of being far, far away from the Whispering Pyre. It sounds like a good place to live.”

She cocks her head. “I don’t really remember much about that time. Yamal’s memories are foggy... like my parents were, before Sasi dug those memories up for me. What was it like? The...” she waves her hands vaguely, “the beautiful bits. The art, the wonders, the music.”

She looks... surprised. “Why do you want to know?” she blurts out.

“I like music,” Keris explains. “And art, and pretty things. I don’t remember much about that time, but I remember it was... terrible and beautiful.” She cocks her head. “Actually sort of like Hell in some ways. There’s glory, but... there’s also horror. I remember the ancient ones who... who meant Yamal never got a voice to speak, because they ruled and anyone younger just had to listen.”

She shakes her head, dismissing the tangent. “But I remember it was glorious as well. A world where... where you could be _yourselves_ , show your true selves, all the time. A world built to survive your power. I have to hide what I am most of the time, or I... I break things. People.” She ducks her head and mumbles. “... cities. But that era... it was made to reflect all that power and make it shine even brighter.”

Keris looks up at the ancient woman behind Sasi’s eyes again, and quirks a half smile. “I remember that it was beautiful, but I don’t remember how,” she says. “And I’d like to. I bet the songs alone must have been ama-”

A detail that slipped her notice the first time it passed through her ears finally registers in Keris’s brain and politely taps her on the shoulder. She stalls for a moment as she replays it.

“... hang on,” she says, once she’s sure that no, she didn’t imagine it. “Hang on, wait. Did... did you say you thought you should _trust_ me? When you knew my name without me telling you? Really honestly trust me? For real?”

The woman blinks. “I... what? Is that what... what?”

((... you know, it’s only just occurred to me now that Sasi may well talk her Coadjutor into letting her see its memories of this to at least get a second-hand account of what she did. Which, sigh. Means it won’t occur to Keris at all.))

Keris grabs her hands. “Please! It’s really really important! Are you sure you felt like you could trust me? Because... because if you did, then that’s probably bleedover from Sasi, which means...”

She lets out a high-pitched note of glee. “She does trust me! I knew it! I mean, I _didn’t_ know it, but I hoped, and I thought she did, but she’s really hard to read, you know? Even I can’t, most of the time, and I think she doesn’t trust easily or nearly at all but if you felt like that and you’ve just sort of got habits left over because you’re in her body then she must...”

Keris spontaneously hugs the woman again, unable to stay still with the excitement of this discovery, and bounces back almost vibrating. She can feel Echo running around tossing streamers and ribbons every which-way. “Thank you thank you thank you! That means a lot to me. Really.”

“Uh...” The woman swallows. “I... I... I am thankful for that, at least. How... how did you and... her. Me. How did you meet?”

“Uh... the first... well, technically I guess the _first_ time was at the Althing when they were deciding where to assign me, and I, uh, chose to go with Orange Blossom to the Scavenger Lands because I had... business there. But then I ran into... trouble, and had to come back for an emergency meeting to decide what to do about the Mask of Winters sticking his nose into things, and Orange Blossom didn’t bother showing up to help and so Sasi did! Even though she was down in the Southwest!”

Keris winces, remembering the details of that meeting. “Uh, actually, so technically _that_ first time we met I was sort of... heavily wounded and slightly feverish and a little bit heading into a week of hallucinations which, let me tell you, weren’t fun. Though I think that’s when Echo was born. And then once I’d recovered she came back to Matasque with me and helped... deal with the problem, and _then_ she came to _Nexus_ with me and helped me settle my business _there_ \- even though I got basically everything I wanted out of that and she had to do a lot of work that went bad because some other Exalt blindsided us - and we just sort of... clicked.”

She smiles dreamily. “And then we had a nice long holiday on an island, and I learnt the basics of Sorcery, and then I moved down to the Southwest with her. Though, um. Don’t tell her I said this, but she’s not great at teaching Sorcery. I don’t get how she summons things at all.”

Unfortunately, Keris doesn’t seem to have chosen the right things to say. “The Althing?” the woman asks sweetly.

“Uh, yeah. Big... thing, at Calibration, where we... well, to be honest, we mostly brag about what we’ve done over the past year and then argue about what we’re going to do _next_ year. And listen to a lot of speeches. And then drink and party a lot.” Keris smirks victoriously. “But I beat Naan in the bragging part this year and got Echo her gloves and ribbons, so it wasn’t a total waste of time.”

“Please, please, I don’t follow. What is this thing?”

“... a meeting,” Keris explains. “Of, you know. Us.” She waves vaguely at her and Sasi. “There are fifty of us, and we’re sort of spread out fairly thin, but we come together at Calibration to connect and plan and so on. I think the decision this year was that we need to focus on fighting the Dead, since they tried to take over Matasque and also attacked Buk Moi down south.”

“Fifty... servants of the Yozis?”

Keris hesitates. “We... don’t really interact with the Yozis much.” She pauses. “Okay, no, that’s a lie. We’re not _meant_ to interact with the Yozis much. I was very, very unlucky. And we’re not _servants_. We’re more...” She purses her lips, thinking. “Kind of... what were the Dragonblooded to you? Before they betrayed you, I mean. We’re more like that, to the Unquestionable.”

The woman’s face goes neutral. “Do you like this? Serving them?” she asks.

Keris opens her mouth to answer, then shuts it again and considers the question with what hard-earned caution she’s learned from Dulmea and Sasi both. And also considers who’s asking it.

“... I get that you probably don’t like it,” she says. “Hate it, even. Hate them. But... you gotta understand, I was dead meat. Worse, actually, because you’d _want_ death over what they do to you in those cells. And then Dulmea appeared and offered me power, and freedom, and never being chained up ever again, and all I had to do was help some things that’d been locked up and crippled and hurt the same way, and left there for thousands of years.

“And so I said yes, obviously, and now she lives in my head and plays me music and helps me and... and she’s my mother, pretty much. And I came here, and they gave me a palace and threw celebrations and parades for me and let me talk and _listened_ to me. I met Sasi here. Echo and Rathan and Haneyl exist because of the power they sent to me. And what I’ve mostly been doing for them is fighting the Realm, or fighting Dead things.

“So... yes. Sorry, but... yes. I owe them a lot. And bar... a couple of things that I’ve avoided since, I don’t think they’ve been trying to do... horrible things. Maybe they’ve changed, since you were alive. Learnt something from their imprisonment. The Dragonblooded turned bad on you. Is it so hard to believe the Unquestionable might have turned good?”

From the micro-expressive flicker of her features, yes, it is apparently that hard.

But her voice is, although shaky, soft and warm and... well, not very Sasi-like as she continues. “Is that what they told you?” she asks, gently. “Really? Because you should judge someone by how they treat people weaker than them, not just by their words and how they treat people who serve them. I tried to teach and to enlighten those who it was my duty to care for.” She reaches out and brushes Keris’ hand. “Can you say the same about how they treat their lessers? The countless masses of the First Circle?”

((... Per + Pres + Humble Mouse Style + bonus, 13 successes))   
((... and, um, I think she’s hitting Keris’ “Love is what you do” and “Choices are important”, accidentally))

Keris opens her mouth. Keris closes her mouth. Several of the roaring, competitive trips out on the city with Naan replay in her mind’s eye.

They don’t seem as funny now. Keris looks down and shrinks in on herself.

“I don’t...” she starts shakily. “Sometimes...”

Ogi’s face bubbles up from the depths, flickering from drunk on rice-wine to drunk on obsession; trading one life-ruining addiction for another. Keris flinches.

“... I hurt things I touch too, though,” she says in a small voice. “I didn’t... I don’t mean to. It just happens. They’re so fragile, and I don’t...” She looks up. “I-I’m not a bad person. Sasi’s not,” she says. It sounds desperate even to her ears. “We... we just...”

“There, there,” the ancient woman says warmly in her strangely accented Old Realm. “A lot of young Sun-Chosen just didn’t think about how their use of power affected those weaker than them, too. I helped set some of them on their own path - a better one. Of course,” she adds wryly, “there were other people who objected to such things, but making the world a better, freer place is worth it.” She sighs. “How old are you? Forty? Fifty?”

“... twenty. Ish,” Keris mutters, huddling into a tighter ball and pulling her hair around herself. “Dunno exactly.”

“Oh. Oh my.” She blinks. “And... h-how long has this body been... this woman been Chosen? How old is she?”

“... um.” Keris has to think about that. She’s not sure Sasi has ever actually said how old she is exactly. “I... think... old enough to have a daughter my age, just about. Forty something, maybe? But I think she’s been Chosen... four, maybe five or six years? There haven’t been many Althings yet. Wherever the Exaltations were, they came back about the time the Empress disappeared.”

She pauses. “Oh,” she adds, mostly to herself. “That means Rat was... probably one of the oldest ones the Mask had. I hadn’t thought of it like that.” Her hair shifts, adjusting and then tightening around her again. “No wonder it wouldn’t let him go.”

“... so young, all of you,” the woman says. She takes a shuddering breath. “Don’t be afraid. You can still change your path. Find out what warped the sunlight within you green.” She settles her jawline. “After all, you were Chosen - and only the strongest of people can bear the burden of the duty the Chosen owe to all of Creation, to cast down false hierarchies and remake the world as a better place.”

Keris half-smiles at that. “I’ve been doing _that_ anyway, at least,” she mumbles. “As best I can.”

“That’s good,” she tells Keris gently. Sitting back, she winces as she stares up at the indoors-golden-sunlight, but endures. “I think I need to sit down,” she says. “Is there somewhere more comfortable we can sit while we talk? I think,” she reaches out and touches Keris just above her heart, “I think you have a good heart in there, and I hope it will be enough.”

Keris nods, still wincing slightly every time a new uncomfortable memory surfaces. She leads the way through the ship to the master bedroom and the High Queen’s bed that stands in it, and absently pulls an apple out of her Domain to occupy her hands while she thinks.

Anilasa’s gaze turns sharply on that. “What did you just _do?_ ” she asks curiously. “And how? It felt so... strange. The way the apple appeared, I mean.”

Keris can’t help but smile. That tone is _very_ Sasi-like.

“It’s my Domain,” she explains with a giggle. “You... heh. Sasi was so confused by it as well. It’s like a little world inside me. It’s not one of the gifts of the Yozis. I mean, I think it’s _like_ how they’re worlds, but it’s not from any single one of them. I built it myself. Dulmea lives there, and so do my other souls.”

Holding out a hand in demonstration, Keris enjoys the widened eyes as Dulmea’s jellyfish-tendril fingers reach out from a tangle of her hair to deposit the Salinan scroll she was last reading in her hand. Music chimes briefly as her Fourth Soul’s hand pulls back and the gap seals again. “It’s useful. Though it’d be a lot more useful if the damn snake didn’t steal half of anything valuable I put in there,” she adds with an irritated grunt. “Stupid po.”

“You... can make worlds within you? So young?” The shock is so familiar to Keris that she has to stifle another giggle. Perhaps Sasi and this long dead woman are more alike than either of them know - or perhaps Sasi is influencing her from within her mind. She slumps back on the bed, wriggling slightly as she shields her eyes. “Everything is so bright,” she complains. “And itches. Sunlight shouldn’t itch.”

She pauses in her complaining.

“What are you reading?” she asks.

Keris sighs and tosses her the scroll. “S’on summoning,” she says. “But I still can’t get it. I mean, it makes more sense than Sasi’s ‘blah blah Devonian this calculations that rituals everywhere’ stuff, but I think a Dragonblood wrote it, because it’s making a lot of references to the Immaculate Dragons that I’m pretty sure aren’t what happened.”

She falls backwards on the bed dramatically. “Urgh. At this rate _Sasi_ ’ll be able to summon my devas before I can,” she complains. “This is just embarrassing.”

“Devon was a proud fool,” the woman sniffs. “His theories were ill-thought out and completely ignored anything he couldn’t measure.”

“Right?” Keris jerks her hand in agreement without sitting up. “And all the calculations just make my head hurt! But Sasi’s basically the only sorcerer I really know, and I haven’t been able to go to one of Orabilis’s libraries and find something better than that yet.”

She shakes her head violently. “Orabilis is a monster who censors knowledge and denies knowledge for his own power. You’ll never get the truth from him - or he’ll only use truth to aid his own interests.”

“Oh.” A sigh. “Great. Huh. Actually, you probably know about Sorcery, right? Can you explain it better? I’m pretty sure I’ve _nearly_ got it, I just don’t understand how the sympathy works to draw the demon to you. The stuff about Hell and Creation being connected, I get _that_ , but when it gets to sending a thought in Essence through the mind of Creation to pull the demon across the Desert, it starts talking about the harmony and dominion of the Immaculate Dragons, and... urgh.”

“The what? The Elemental Dragons, souls of Gaia?”

“... possibly.” Keris shrugs. “The Immaculate Faith teaches that they’re basically the top gods - and the Incarnae, but mostly the Dragons. Oh, and it also says that any Exalt that isn’t a Dragonblood is an Anathema and a demon who’s stolen the body of the person wearing it and is evil and needs to die.”

She sits bolt upright. “What?!”

Keris nods glumly. “If you show yourself as an Exalt near Realm territory, you get a lot of Dragonblooded coming to murder you. That point was made pretty clear to me. I think there might have been someone who had my Exaltation between Yamal and me - I was only Chosen a bit more than a year ago. Best guess is that they weren’t subtle enough.”

The woman cracks her knuckles. “So what do you know about sorcery? You studied it with... which school?”

Keris sits up, nodding to the scroll. “Salinan. Sasi uses Devonian, so we’ve only got so far, but I think the Salinan school makes more sense, you know? It’s not all numbers and calculations. I found that and a bunch of other scrolls on it in a Dragonblood’s holiday house in An Teng.”

The... the not-Sasi runs her hands through her hair. “May I see it?” she says. Keris gets the feeling that she seems sort of making an offer.

“Sure. If you can explain it in a way that makes sense, I might kiss you.” Keris grins, happy to have something to distract her from the rather uncomfortable thoughts that their earlier conversation provoked. “I’ve wanted to know how to summon ever since I saw it for the first time.”

“Summoning is not a minor, casual thing,” she chides Keris. “You are enslaving a sentient being when you bind a demon.”

“That’s one of the questions I wanted to ask, actually,” Keris says, leaning forward. “Do you have to bind them? I mean, I can understand why you would if it was something like a blood ape, but Curaji - she was the angyalka, that first time - she was mostly just shy and young and harmless. Why couldn’t I just have _asked_ her for help?”

Sitting back, the woman looks up at the ceiling. “Well, it is complicated...” she begins to lecture, and Keris listens.

((Yaaaay! Summoning! Admittedly, Keris will have to adapt it slightly for Infernal summoning, but I think I feel happy buying it now. : D))   
((Keris - Mentor 1 (Salina). Super-useful and friendly and knows a lot, not very useful because she’s never around.))   
((dammit keris stop getting super-important mentor 1s))   
((Hmm. And...))   
((... I think I might use this talk as the start of working up to Compassion 4.))   
((Which will not be a comfortable process for Keris.))   
((Indeed))

Their talk is... fascinating to Keris. Very interesting. And ... it opens her mind in ways she didn’t expect. She’s never really talked to someone like this before. And...

... uh, in some ways she’s quite a bit nicer than Sasi. Not that there’s anything wrong with Sasi. Of course. But she’s... well, her ideas are quite nice and kind and... and Keris sort of likes them.

After nearly six hours, though, she sways, eyes crossing. “Feel... sick,” she groans mid-way through an explanation on philosophy.

“... I think you’re going back to sleep,” Keris realises. “Sasi’s waking up. Um...” She bites her lip and speaks quickly. “I liked talking to you. And I hope you’ll remember me if this happens again. Thank you, Anilasa.”

“Keris.” the woman says, her head slumped forwards. “Not Anilasa. Salina is... was my name. Do... the right thing. I know you... can. Do not trust the Hierarchy and...” she slumps back.

After a bit, she starts snoring.

It takes a couple of seconds for that to sink in.

Salina. _The_ Salina. As in, the Salinan _school of sorcery_. Keris gapes. She just got a lecture on Salinan summoning - among other things - from... from the mother of the school.

... after a moment or two of thinking about that, she decides that she is in no fit state of mind to think about that right now. Curling up next to Sasi, she lets the bone-sucking weariness of what has been an _exhausting_ quarter-day pull her, too, into slumber.


	5. Chapter 5

Keris sleeps poorly. She has bad dreams, and neither Dulmea nor Haneyl seem at ease - and she can’t find any sign of Echo or Rathan. She’s troubled, too. Troubled, because Salina was right... and also troubled because she was wrong. The ancient woman’s words about judging people by how they treat their lessers resonate in Keris’s dreams, pulling guilt and shame with them like a tide. But she’d also held up the Sun as some sort of... some sort of good thing. Like it would be better if Keris’s light were golden - like sunlight, which hurt Sasi and had bound the Yozis in eternal torment, was just obviously the best thing to be.

And she was wrong about that, Keris is sure. She’s happy with who and what she is. Troubled about what she’s _doing_ , now, but what she is... she sees no reason to change that. Not like Salina seemed to think she should.

But if Salina was wrong about that... what else might she have been wrong about? What else might... might _anyone_ be wrong about? Including Keris!

How is she meant to tell right from wrong when even a woman who’s spent two thousand years thinking about them doesn’t have all the answers?

“There, there,” Dulmea whispers to Haneyl, wrapping her up in her hair. Haneyl is trading seats between Keris and Dulmea, and asking for hugs and crying about how the mean lady was lying to them and had to be because she was horrible and stealing Mother’s body.

Keris provides the hugs and avoids the questions. She’s still far too confused about Salina’s words herself to work out what to say to Haneyl. Instead, she drifts in and out of lucidity, sometimes there to hug her daughter and take comfort in the sweet flowery smell and insistent clinging to her neck, other times drifting through memory-dreams of... well, of things that don’t shed a very good light on her as someone in a position of power. The realisation that she’s not actually sure how many people she’s killed is not a terribly comfortable one.

She wakes shivering, and looks up at Sasi’s face warily. She’s still asleep, snuggled under Keris’ hair to cover her eyes. Unfortunately, Keris’ movement has uncovered them, and she stirs.

Rubbing her eyes, Sasi groans in the way she normally does when she wakes up. But then there’s a sudden hitch in her breath. “Not again,” she moans.

“Again?” Keris shifts her hair back, shading Sasi’s face for her.

Sasi freezes. “Just a nightmare,” she says.

((9 sux of Per + Pres))

She’s very convincing. Keris would believe her, if it weren’t for the fact that, uh, she just spent half the last afternoon talking to Salina in her lover’s body.

“... okay,” she says, trying not to let this show on her face. “Did you, uh, decide what you wanted from the ship?”

“What... what happened?” Sasi asks, clearly and self-evidently vulnerable and confused in the way she’s acting. “I just...” she frowns. “I had a headache and then I blacked out.”

Keris bites her lip. She has a feeling... okay, it’s partly a feeling and partly just _knowing Sasi_ , but she suspects that the older woman knows rather more about what happened than she’s letting on. And doesn’t trust Keris with it. But from what Salina said, she does _trust_ Keris. Just... not with this.

Which sort of makes sense. Keris isn’t sure she wants Sasi to know about the conversation she had with her past life. Not just yet, anyway.

“... you sort of staggered a bit,” she says. “And started talking strangely in Old Realm. I... think it was a bit like when Yamal took me over in Nexus. She said her name was Anilasa, and panicked a bit, and I got her calmed down and brought her here to sleep it off.” She hesitates. “I was worried she might, you know, hurt the baby,” she adds. “But I think she was too focused on me to really think about it.”

“How long?” The words come out razor-sharp.

Keris shrugs. “Dunno. I fell asleep once she did. It took ages to get her calmed down, though. She, uh... she didn’t take the whole ‘you died a long time ago’ news very well. There was a lot of sobbing.” She pauses, realising something. “Wait, drat. I never got an answer about the music and art styles back then.”

Sasi stares at the wall, covering her eyes. And then she looks at Keris. She’s Sasi, so she’s always pale and she can’t sweat, but if she was someone else she’d be pale and clammy. “No one can know,” she begs Keris. “Please. I... I don’t know what that was or... or why it took over or...” her breath catches in her throat, “or what on earth it tried to make you do, but the Immaculate Order isn’t wrong when it describes what the Anathema are. Ancient god-kings, stealing the bodies of more recent people. That’s what that was. What... what it had to be. And it’ll have tried to use you. To...” Sasi clings to Keris closely, and Keris can feel that she’s shaking like a leaf. “No one can know. No one at all.”

((And... wow, Sasi, that’s 22 successes. Keris can roll Reaction + Politics.))   
((... urk. 5+1+2 Coadj+6 Kimmy ExD {secrets, shameful truths}=14. 6 sux.))   
((Yeah, Keris gets that Sasi channelled a 4 dot Principle on that, and the emotional context linked with it is “Self-loathing terror”.))

Keris rolls away for a moment to rearrange her hair, then shifts back and cuddles into Sasi’s warmth. “You’re back now, that’s what matters,” she soothes. “I... I was scared, I’ll admit. Not of it, but... for you. Of it hurting you, or trying to, and not being able to stop it in time...”

She bites her lip and kisses Sasi chastely on the lips. “I won’t be telling anyone, don’t worry,” she promises. “And, uh, Haneyl is happy you’re back. She was even more scared for you than I was.”

Keris can feel the grey-haired woman sink into her arms. “What did she say to you? What did she try to persuade you to do?” she says numbly.

Keris hesitates, and shakes her head. “I know she was wrong,” she replies. “Does it matter what exactly it was? Mostly just... stuff about the Whispering Pyre being awful. And the Yozis and Unquestionable in general. That sort of thing.”

Sasi rolls her shoulders, and takes a deep breath. “Well,” she says, with a bit more of the usual Sasi tartness, “do you at least remember the access codes? Because I don’t think I should do that again.”

“Yeah, I had those down as soon as you - she - played them,” Keris nods. She gives Sasi a reassuring nuzzle. “Do you want to stay here and rest for a bit, or go ransack my ship of everything you want from it?”

“I... I should be up and about and moving,” Sasi says, almost to herself. “Think of the present.” She takes a breath, and her newfound amulet shifts her clothes from liquid shadow into a peculiarly Realm-ish scarlet robe. It seems to bring more colour to her skin. “Keris. Follow me around and... and you can tell me about Haneyl. Maybe if she wants, she can pass me some notes.”

Keris helps her up and grins. “Well,” she begins, keeping half an ear on Haneyl’s frantic babbling as she searches for paper, “she’s been sneaking rafts of sargasso out into the Sea when she thinks nobody else will notice, to try and steal territory from Rathan. But she’s run into a bit of a problem...”

Between the two of them, over the course of the next day or so they strip much of the interior of the vessel clean of valuables. Between the two of them, they actually have an amusingly sizeable collection of High First Age formalwear - and multiple amulets. The people onboard were dressed for a party - a Calibration party - and it shows. There are countless image-weaving cubes and singing boxes which just await power and repair to be rendered whole again - and Keris watches in awe as Sasi manages to make one work and it shows lavish, full-colour images of what seems to be some kind of play, little floating images which can be viewed from all angles and which speak in the strange archaic Old Realm.

The strangest thing about that image-weaving cube, in fact, is that it isn’t for anything profound. It’s a rather bawdy comedy that might well be making fun of people, if Keris guesses what some of the name references are to.

“We will need manses,” Sasi says sadly. “Manses and alchemical distilling equipment to fuel these things, if we want to find out what is on them. They’ll be damaged if we fuel them from our souls - they were never meant for ones like us. Even with certain secrets of the Dragon I have learned that let me pass as such an Exalt, they’ll degrade and damage. But this repository of data - acch, I might wish it was a library of plans or some other First Age knowledge, but who knows what we might discern from these cultural artefacts, these artworks and musics and plays. Let’s not trade them to anyone until we know their contents.”

Keris nods absently, already committing the tunes to memory and salivating over the embroidery in the formalwear. “You’re taking most of it, I guess?” She sighs. “Can I at least keep a backup amulet? For Dulmea to wear?”

“We’ll work it out. But yes, considering that we’ve found twelve so far, yes.”

It takes the rest of the day, but eventually they’ve sorted most of the contents of the ship that aren’t actually part of it into two piles; one that Sasi is taking and one that Keris is allowed to keep.

Sasi’s pile is notably bigger, though she has graciously conceded to leave the royal bed of An Teng’s High Queen in its cabin. Keris brushes her hand sadly over the wall. There’s a painting there of a woman who looks just like the High Queen - and there’s a man next to her, dressed in formal jade armour. There’s glowing embers in his hair. The picture is incredible. It looks like it could be a window.

“I need to paint you,” she murmurs to the woman. “Like I promised I would. I’ll have it be found in some old archive or something. Maybe Ledaal Norono could ‘find’ it.”

“Paint me like one of your Nexan girls?” Sasi asks, quirking one eyebrow.

Keris looks up at her, startled. “Eh? Oh, uh, no... I mean yes, I’d... I mean I didn’t paint anyone in...”

She stops. She starts again. “Uh. I’d love to paint you? And I can have Haneyl in it as well.”

Sasi brushes Keris’ hand. “I’d love to see her,” she says softly.

“We’ll find a way,” Keris promises - both Sasi and Haneyl. “It might take a while, but we’ll find one. Oh, and... another note.” She takes the latest of Haneyl’s correspondences out, rolling her eyes and dutifully looking the other way while passing the folded paper to Sasi.

Sasi reads it, and then slides it away in her shadow. “Now, perhaps a day or so of us just spending some time together, and then I really do have to get back to An Teng,” she says sadly. “I’ll start looking for leads on manses or demesnes we can make use of.”

((Possessiveness 4; 1 sux. Sasi 4; 2 sux. Amusingly, Be Rich and Comfortable 3; botch. Purely altruistic, this. : P))

Keris hesitates, wavers, and then pulls several of her most recent maps of An Teng out from where the decorate the walls of her Library.

“I’ll want them back, but... you can use these,” she offers. “They have dragon lines and demesnes marked on them - Shogunate era, so things will have shifted, but it’s a place to start. Even some manses that I never got around to checking out.”

Sasi inclines her head. “I’ll see if I can make copies of most of them,” she says respectfully.

“Thank you. Now, I think you were saying something about sitting for a painting...?”

“So, what are your plans for the vessel?” Sasi asks, when she’s sitting for the painting the next day.

Keris stays silent for a moment before replying, because she’s carefully mixing the inks for Sasi’s hair, which is giving her trouble. Eventually she gives up and hands the ink base over to the bloodwork artist whose work she’s studying; accepting a blended palate back from it that’s perfect for the shade.

“I was thinking of having it overhauled,” she says, using the hairtip she’s using as a drafting tool to outline Sasi’s fringe in thin, vague lines that suggest the way it shadows her eyes. “The fuel systems replaced with ones I can get my hands on more easily. Maybe even aspect them to Echo, Rathan and Haneyl. But the only person I know who could do that is Unquestionable Ligier.”

She shuts one eye and holds up a thumb and finger to frame Sasi’s face; cutting off the woman’s immediate reaction with a silent order to stay still and let Keris judge angles and lengths properly. “I guess... it’s worth asking what it’d cost... for him to do it,” she muses, referring back to her model repeatedly as she gets the eyes just right. “Maybe I could see if I could... urgh, no, that’s wrong... run some missions for him. Or, uh... turn over the Marble Warriors from Yamal’s tomb. If I could get them out. There’re a hundred or so in there, I think.”

Sasi sits back, and smiles slightly. A voice from the shadow sings her response. “He would make you recover them at least. But I worry that Orange Blossom may already have made a move on them, given she knew you had found them.”

Keris cocks her head. “Maybe. Though the pair of Solars tried to get in as well using what I knew, and it didn’t go well for them. I found them both dead the second time I went there.” She purses her lips. “Well, if she’s actually _got_ them, Lord Ligier will probably know, and if she doesn’t, I can go in and grab them all sneaky-like.”

“Well, it may be worth trying,” Sasi says.

((Rolling for picture! Uh... 2+5+1 Impulsive Ichor-Artist+2 stunt+1 demon assistant+7 Kimmy ExD {beauty, great artist}=18. Oh _come on_ ; fuck you dice fairies. 4 sux. Man, that wasn’t even a “screw me over dramatically” under-sux, it was just a “do something nice for Sasi” one. Mou.))

Keris is still learning the new, more formalised style of painting, and the rushed energy of finishing it in a single sitting makes her less precise than usual. The finished painting is still a work of art; Haneyl sitting beaming on her mother’s knee and proudly flaunting her crown and robes. But Keris is disappointed in it nonetheless.

“I’ll do better next time,” she promises. “After I’ve got more comfortable painting like this.”

Sasi smiles. “I can think of several ways to make this a more comfortable session. Like a more comfortable chair,” she says. The next day, though, she’s off back to An Teng, with a soul full of ancient treasures and a tender goodbye kiss.

“Come back soon,” she says to Keris as she starts back across the Desert. “Don’t leave me waiting alone for too long.”

“I promise,” murmurs Keris, stealing one last hug before letting her mount her agata and vanish with a soft chime. She returns to her townhouse and tells Mehuni to politely request her an audience with Lord Ligier, then takes out her restlessness on the Shashalme’s gift.

Her work on the moving map has slowed down considerably now that she’s actually making the thing, though that might also have something to do with the way that she keeps getting distracted by practicing her painting in determination to improve. At least Sasi took her sub-par first effort with her when she left.

Keris soon receives a message saying that Lord Ligier will be pleased to have her presence upon the twelfth scream of the tomescu from now. She grins happily and throws herself back into work. Piu dances to her harp music in two different performances, and she spends some time with Shan going over the afflictions she encountered in An Teng, as well as summoning one of Echo’s ribbon-horses and giving it to Yelm as a steed. Her work on the bowl progresses steadily, and she has the elemental rendered down into chalcanth and infused into the soil and water by the time the day of her meeting with the Green Sun comes.

Unsurprisingly, she is rather nervous, even with the ship returned to her soul for safekeeping and something to offer as a possible price. The last Unquestionable she really spoke to was... well, apart from Lilunu, the Shashalme and a brief conversation with Jacinct a full year or more ago, she hasn’t really spoken to any of the Unquestionable. They’re terrifying, even when they’re being nice.

Ligier will be meeting her within the Emerald Palace, he says. Apparently it is a palace carved from a single emerald the scale of a building.  For once, Keris foregoes her love of red and opts instead for a deep green dress; reminiscent of the wavecrests of Kimbery and incorporating subtle elements of the First Age styles she saw on her new ship in its lines and cut. There’s not much she can do about her hair colour that doesn’t involve poisoning it, so she braids it neatly and wraps it in a scarf before heading off in a palanquin; wary of mussing her appearance by running there herself.

She’s left feeling that maybe she didn’t choose quite right. But then again, maybe that’s because of her surroundings. The green light is bright and warm, and the entire layer remains the most beautiful part of Malfeas she’s ever seen.

And then there’s the Emerald Palace. It rises above a basalt plain, and when the light falls upon it it casts green rainbows across the skies of the Demon City.

There is but a single approach up to it, and the scale as she approaches is intimidating. Everything is built larger than Keris’s scale. Vast automata guard the entryway, while down on the plains she can see forges which are veritable lakes of molten metal.

She gawks unashamedly as she’s carried in, and lingers outside for a few moments, taking in the sweeping archways, the cyclopean grandeur, the sunburst motifs and proud towers. Then she musters herself, subtly shifts her Amulet’s colour to a dark viridian that better flatters the bright emerald shades of the palace, and enters the hall of Ligier.

She advances past wave after wave of automata and lesser demons. The music swells and swells, becoming louder and more beautiful. She can see the green sun himself sprawled up on his throne. He’s an incredibly handsome young man, with a pharaohic appearance and a dominating aquiline nose. His eyes burn like the sun overhead, whose light reflects through the emerald hall and surround him with light.

At the feet of the stairs before him, she kneels.

“Welcome, Keris Dulmeadokht,” Ligier says. “You wished a meeting.”

“I did, my lord,” she says, head still bowed. “I have a request and an offer that might interest you. I have come into possession of a vessel from the High First Age. The personal yacht of the High Queen of An Teng. Peer Sasimana and I discovered it, and she agreed to let me keep the ship itself for my work against the Realm.”

She risks a look up. “As it stands, it requires fuel I don’t have and can’t produce. It would need to be altered and refitted were I to make full use of it... and I don’t know of anyone more capable of such a feat than you, my lord.”

Ligier rises, his basalt robes flowing around him. Graciously, he descends a few steps. “How amusingly blunt,” he says with a small superior-yet-kindly smile. “Come with me, up to the veranda. Let us have some tea and talk further.”

Keris rises hurriedly and follows him, staying a couple of paces back and wracking her brains for the other formalities of interacting with someone of Ligier’s status. Dulmea is being unusually unhelpful, largely because she’s almost paralysed with fear.

Haneyl, on the other hand, has been babbling non-stop since her first glimpse of the palace, and is in fact getting rather hard to ignore. Keris has to mentally hiss that the Unquestionable will be offended if she’s too distracted by her daughter’s commentary to pay him due attention to get Haneyl to divert her stream of consciousness to Dulmea instead.

Upon the roof, the sun is close enough overhead that it seems to fill half the sky. She knows, just from her gut, that if he chose to he could immerse her in his flames - but instead the light is green and soft and warm, like light reflected off a grassy field. Beautiful demons - male, female and sexless alike - carefully place out a low table and mats, and then prepare the tea. They then retreat to a safe distance.

Ligier gestures for Keris to kneel upon the mat, and once she kneels joins her on the opposite side of the table. He looms over her, because he’s built to a scale subtly above the way humans are, and Keris... isn’t the tallest person in most rooms even at the best of times.

Tea is, happily, something Keris is relatively good at. She stays quiet, waiting for Ligier to speak first, and takes her tea with Dulmea-trained grace, though not without a slight tremble to her hands.

The fetich soul of Malfeas seems... almost paternalistic. Keris gets the feeling that he’s entirely happy with the way she’s behaved so far, because she clearly is both scared of him and amazed by this place. He likes that. He takes great pride in his works, as one of the most core facets of his personality. Her overt fear dims - not gone, but banked - and she takes the opportunity to look around some more as they sip at their tea. Within her, Haneyl is almost swooning.

“So, Keris Dulmeadokht,” Ligier says in his very precise and correct Old Realm. “Please, little one. Expand. You say you have come into the possession of the Royal Yacht of An Teng. How absolutely fascinating. You must have quite a tale.”

Keris ducks her head. “Peer Sasimana and I discovered it together,” she explains. “After she was attacked at Buk Moi by the Dead, she sent me to clear the shadowland of the foul things nested there and recover information on what they sought. The Dead Exalt who led the attack was searching for relics of the High Queen - we followed the trail to a Dynast with interests in Tengese history, though,” she frowns, “I didn’t manage to kill her when we glimpsed her with him; more’s the pity.”

She sips at her tea again, becoming more animated as the tale unfolds. “The reason nobody had ever found it was because they were looking in the wrong river,” she continues. “The one referenced in the old tales dried up... oh, centuries ago, I think. By the time we located the right one, our enemy had set one of the Greater Dead and its minions to excavating the old riverbed in search of it.” She flashes a smile. “I dispatched them, of course. And then Peer Sasimana picked out the yacht’s location and burrowed down to it, and I plucked it from its grave and brought it back here.”

“How very interesting,” Ligier says. “I am surprised you managed to get it into the City without my knowledge, but then again,” he gives an easy laugh, “a peer such as yourself is quite the subtle little thing, isn’t she?”

Keris blushes and looks down at her teacup. “You flatter me, my lord,” she murmurs. Her inner world doesn’t strictly come from any of the Yozis themselves. Is it a good idea to let any of the Unquestionable know about it? Well, perhaps it’s best to keep quiet about it unless she has to. “I have it harboured Elsewhere,” she compromises. “Though retrieving it is a task of several hours, if you wish to see it.”

((Per + Pres for ze sootle misdirection.))   
((3+5+3 Mendaciloquent Maverick+1 bonus {grain of truth}+2 stunt+4 Kimmy ExSux {charm, poise, secrets kept through guile}=14. 10+4=14 sux, _thank_ you dice fairies.))

“I see,” Ligier says. “Well, you are close to the Demon Sea, I have heard. No, no, I will take your word for it.”

Keris dips her head in gratitude. “I’m sure few examples of such lost wonders enter the City without your eye falling on them,” she says. “And I know of a cache of others I’ve encountered that may yet be untouched, unless Peer Orange Blossom has claimed them since I last saw them. A hundred or so Marble Warriors - automata of the High First Age - stood guard in Yamal Icewind’s tomb when I raided it in Crowning Water. If they’re still there, I’d be honoured to retrieve them for you in gratitude for your aid on this project.”

“And what you desire is a full refit of such a craft?” Ligier takes a sip of his tea. “Well, that would be a major project, yes. I am certain that those marble warriors might help, but funereal guards are so... limited. But ah, you are a peer. I am sure there are things you could do for me all over Creation. Places to go, insults to avenge...”

Keris inclines her head. “I have always wanted to travel Creation, see new sights, meet new people...” She smiles shyly, leaving the rest of the sentence hanging. “This sounds like an agreement I would be pleased to accept, my lord.”

She hesitates. To ask him about the idea she’d had, or not? It _is_ a compelling one... but she’s not sure it would even be feasible, or if she wants to make her souls known right now, let alone whether this is a good time to bring it up.

((Uh... Reaction + Politics.))   
((5+1+2 Coadj+3 Falling Petals+2 stunt=13. 6 sux.))   
((Keris is... not sure how he’d take it. He might be fascinated. He might be less pleased. She’d need to tell him if she wanted it to be attuned to her precise essence blend, but he’d probably use Hellish kinds of essence in the refit - she guesses - and she does have some Malfeas and stuff in her. So she’s not sure if it’s a good idea.   
She also has Intolerable Burning Truths saying that she can’t betray any of her beloved characters, which means she can’t do it without spending WP if she feels what she’d be doing would be betraying any of her souls.))   
((Well, hmm. He’s hardly going to do it _right now_ , so I can buy a bit of time to think.))

She decides to leave it for the moment, and perhaps get a better idea of how he’ll react to it before broaching the topic. “When would be a good time to show it to you?” she asks instead.

Ligier adjusts his robe casually. “Speak with the Weaver of Voices. She loves beautiful things and,” he smiles, “you are already acquainted. I have heard an amusing little tale. Gloves and ribbons, yes?”

((... lawl. This is too good to resist. Temperance 2; BOTCH, wahahaha.))

Keris turns an interesting shade of crimson. “They... those were for my fifth soul!” she stutters hurriedly. “She can’t... she wanted to touch things without breaking them, and no lesser material would work, so I... um...”

She squirms a little, realising that not only might she just have let on a little more than she intended to, she is also floundering like a child in front of the fetich soul of the Demon City. “I, uh, owe Berengiere a debt for her aid in that,” she finishes lamely.

“Fifth?” Ligier says, totally neutrally.

“Uh... yes,” Keris stutters. Still, Echo is the most outwardly known of her souls. Her meeting with Adorjan isn’t often discussed, but it’s not really a secret - a week of vivid hallucinations and fever are hard to hide. And Naan at least has caught glimpses of Echo on their carousing through the city.

“Ah... that is, she appeared after my, um...” she winces, “... run with the Silent Wind, back in Air. Sasimana says she’s like a... a lesser Silence in My Wake.” Her mouth twitches. “Technically speaking, she killed more of the Dead in the Buk Moi shadowland than I did. She wasn’t intelligent when she first appeared, but since then she’s... grown, I suppose. In a lot of ways.”

She risks a glance at him. “I think Unquestionable Lilunu knows of her,” she adds carefully. “She told me I was becoming multitudes.”

Ligier smiles broadly. “Keris Dulmeadokht,” he says, “it is useful of you that you are not enough of a fool to lie to me. I knew already. You are not the only one - and some are not quite as smart as you.”

Something in the back of Keris’s mind - possibly Dulmea - whimpers faintly in relief and terror as she gets the strong sense that the steel jaws of a trap just swung shut behind her with terrible force, missing her by inches.

On the other hand, she _did_ dodge it. And if honesty is what let her do so - and if the Unquestionable know of her budding souls and haven’t punished her for it - then more honesty probably can’t hurt, can it?

“Echo is my fifth soul, but she has two younger siblings,” she admits softly. “A Red Moon; Rathan, who takes after the Sea, and Haneyl, who seems to have been born from both the Swamp and...” she ducks her head again, blushing faintly once more, “... and from your fires, my lord. She admires you greatly.”

“ _Keris!_ ” squeaks Haneyl. “Don’t say that! You’ll make him think... you’ll make me look... you’ll... Keris! Mother! Please!”

((Per + Pres to try to coax him, 3 dice stunt for playing off his traits.))   
((Hee. 3+5+3 stunt+4 Kimmy ExD {charm, talent for temptation}=11. 8+4=12 sux.))

The Green Sun smiles widely. “She admires me, you say? Well, that is merely natural.” He reaches into a pocket, and passes a little trinket emerald on a brass chain. “A small gift for such a wise child, should she ever find a way to manifest.”

Haneyl’s complaints instantly undergo a 180 degree turn into cheers of excitement, and Keris stifles a laugh as she bows in thanks. “She is overjoyed, my lord,” she tells him. “You are most generous.”

“Of course I am,” Ligier says arrogantly. “What do you think of the tea?”

Keris praises it - it really is very good tea - and it’s not much longer before she’s shown out as the Green Sun moves onto the other matters in his busy schedule.

Outside the Emerald Palace, she takes a shuddering breath or two to stop shaking, and then gets back in the palanquin and heads home to calm down properly.

It’s relatively easy for Keris to arrange the hand-over with the Weaver of Voices within a few days, even if Echo does insist on being allowed to show up and model her dress and gloves for their maker. Keris shows Berengiere around the ship, anchored on the coast of Kimbery on one of the inner layers, and takes pride in how the demon seems to appreciate the beautiful design of her new property - doubly so with the sunlight shut off so that merely standing in the yacht isn’t actively uncomfortable.

She also enquires, tentatively, if the adjustments to the ship might be made specific - altering the sunlight that powers it, for instance, to the light of the Green Sun.

Berengiere has brought a whole flotilla of Ligier’s vessels to aid in its recovery - and a giant sky whale to help lift it, once they’ve wrapped it in slings made of demongut. The noise is painfully loud to Keris, because they seem to be going to extreme lengths to scare off the Silent Wind.

“I am unsure what Lord Ligier will wish to do,” the Weaver says to Keris’ query, shouting over the noise. She pauses and moves swiftly to order flaming catapults to be fired at icebergs she can see. “He will no doubt spend some time devising the best design he can.”

“I had wondered how possible it might be,” Keris shouts back, unsure if her voice is even carrying over the din, “to attune the peripheral systems to my souls, with the light of the Green Sun powering the core functions.” She grits her teeth as the catapults impact, and resorts to putting a pair of larmagar on her ears, deafening her completely. It makes her curiously light headed; having her preternatural hearing amputated as they suck in all the sound that reaches them, but it’s better than being deafened more permanently by sheer volume.

“I would not know! This is not my area of expertise!”

Keris is somewhat relieved when they arrive on Ligier’s layer and the din recedes enough for her to remove the bugs. She massages her tender ears as they settle into a private harbour and debates the merits of sticking her head underwater to make her headache go away.

... probably not worth the loss of dignity, she decides. But still very tempting.

Ligier sweeps into the drydock it’s taken to and every demon hits the floor, genuflecting to him. Smiling casually, he gestures for the ones who were busy doing other things to continue in their work, but lets the others remain prostrated.

Keris meets him at the gangplank and bows, stepping aside to let him onboard. “My ship, my lord,” she greets him. “I hope you find it to your liking.”

“It will not be my highest priority,” he tells Keris bluntly. “I will begin with setting a few dedicated students of mine towards drawing up plans and judging its current state - for at the moment, I can already see that it has suffered damage from lack of maintenance and would require an extensive rebuild even if it were not to be refitted. Once those things are done, why, then we can start the planning. Time enough, surely,” he raises a hand, “for you to be of assistance.”

Keris nods. “I understand, my lord. Do you have any tasks in mind for me?”

The man flaps a hand in her direction. “Oh, I shall speak with Lilunu and see what can be done. Expect to hear from me within a few dozen tomescu-screams at the outside.”

“As you say, my lord. Thank you for your time.” Keris bows again, and breathes an inward sigh of relief. Twenty screams should be enough for her to finish the Shashalme’s gift, and once that’s done she’ll more or less have concluded her business in Hell. It’ll be good to get back to Creation again, where the sunlight may prickle but she can be assured of peace and quiet with relative ease.


End file.
